Steven Vanderstichelen is a senior postdoctoral research fellow (FWO) and public health researcher in palliative care with experience in population-based and community-based research methods, combining quantitative (survey research) and qualitative (focus groups, interviews) research methods. He is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the End-of-Life Care Research Group at Ghent University and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Steven is research coordinator of the Compassionate Communities Centre of Expertise at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, an interdisciplinary research programme in which 8 research groups from 4 faculties work together studying public health and community-based approaches to the societal challenges of serious illness, death, dying and loss. Steven's main research interests focus on the development and evaluation of compassionate community models, including communities, schools and workplaces, and the development and of the concept of Death Literacy and its promise for building and evaluating community capacity in supporting people facing end-of-life challenges. Steven is an ex-officio council member of Public Health Palliative Care International, a steering group member of the EAPC Reference Group on Public Health and Palliative Care, and co-coordinator and co-PI of the Horizon Europe EU-CoWork project.