Dr. D.E. van der Poel is associate professor at the University of Utrecht (Department of Languages, Literature and Communication / Institute for Cultural Inquiry). She is a specialist in late medieval Dutch literature and culture, more in particular secular and religious song. Other interests involve drama, gender and allegory. She was the leader of the research program ‘In Tune with Eternity; Song and Spirituality of the Modern Devotion’ (funded by NWO-FWO) and was part of  the team of the research program ‘Dutch Songs on Line’ (funded by NWO). Her books include Women's writing from the Low Countries 1200-1875 (Amsterdam: 2010, with E.M.P. van Gemert and others) and an edition of the Antwerp Songbook (1544): Het Antwerps Liedboek (Tielt: 2004, with Louis Peter Grijp and others).

She was the Director of Graduate Studies of TLC 2017-2021. She chairs the Project Board of Medieval Miscellanies in the Netherlands (Projectcommissie Middeleeuwse Verzamelhandschriften in de Nederlanden).