Ann Heylen (born 1966) studied Sinology (Oriental Philology and History) at the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven). In 2001 she obtained her PhD in Leuven with a study on language reform movements in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period in the 1920s and 1930s. After completing her PhD, she conducted postdoctoral research at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), within the Research Unit for Taiwanese Culture and Literature (2004-5), and remained affiliated as a research associate in the Japanese Studies program at K.U. Leuven. During this time, she participated in several research projects at Taiwanese universities. Shortly before returning to Taiwan in February 2008, she was a visiting researcher at Stockholm University, Center for Pacific Asia Studies (CPAS). In 2008, she took up the position of associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature at the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), Taipei. Since 2017, she has been a professor at the Department of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature at NTNU. She also serves as the director of the International Taiwan Studies Center (ITSC, 2009-) within the College of Liberal Arts. In the context of the internationalization of Taiwan Studies and the enhancement of its visibility, she co-founded the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS, 2004-). She is also editor-in-chief of the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture (EAJPC, Intellect, 2015-), alongside Edward Vickers (Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan). Since January 2025, she has been a visiting researcher at the GLOBALISE project at the Huygens Institute.
Her research focuses on the historiography, language and culture of Taiwan, with particular attention to the seventeenth-century VOC period and the Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945). Her most recent research interests include media discourse on ‘Formosa’ in the Dutch-language press, as well as a revisiting of the VOC source material related to the Tayouan factory and Taiwanese historiography. Within the GLOBALISE project at the Huygens Institute, her work primarily centers on the representation of Formosa-related entities in the event ontology.
