Post Doctoral Researchers
Vanessa de Abreu Santos
Post Doctoral Researcher - Audio-Visual,Creative & Cultural
Email: Vanessa.deAbreuSantos@TUDublin.ie
Vanessa Santos is an artist-researcher whose work bridges creativity, tourism, and sustainability. With over 20 years of experience as a creative entrepreneur, she has a background in theatre and circus and has co-founded ventures across several countries in eco-design, jazz, food tourism, culinary placemaking, and culinary heritage diplomacy, supporting marginalized groups through living heritage as tool for empowerment and connection.
In 2019, Vanessa transitioned into research through her work on Portugal’s CREATOUR project, where she facilitated stakeholder networking sessions and produced video documentaries amplified community perspectives. She also contributed to the SmartCulTour project by co-developing arts-based and service design tools. Her work included cultural mapping workshops in the Scheldeland Living Lab in Belgium, to co-create sustainable cultural tourism strategies. Her doctoral dissertation delivered as autoethnotheatre, explored creativity as a process for sustainable tourism development in Portugal's Centro Region.
Drawing on her rich practical background, she engages in participatory action research, where lived experience and collaborative practice inform theoretical development. She is passionate about fostering human-centered, experimental, and context-sensitive approaches to policymaking, balancing economic resilience with social equity.
As an educator, Vanessa facilitated several artistic workshops, and has taught courses in creative qualitative research, culture, and tourism, and co-founded KU Leuven’s HERKUL Institute and the Cultural Tourism Lab, both dedicated to advancing living heritage practices.
