Els Leye is a postdoctoral fellow and holds a position as professor in Global Health/Gender Related Practices at the faculty of medicine at Ghent University. She’s also a postdoctoral fellow to the Center for Gender, Diversity and Intersectionality at the Free University in Brussels. She holds a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Welfare Studies and obtained her PhD in Comparative Sciences of Culture at Ghent University in 2008, on the topic of female genital mutilation (FGM)  in Europe. She has a year-long expertise in the field of harmful cultural practices, and more specifically FGM, forced marriages and honor related violence. She has many publications under her name on these topics.