Ilse De Vos studied Latin & Greek at UGent and obtained her doctorate in Byzantinism at KU Leuven. She lived in the United Kingdom for five years, where she worked as a researcher at the University of Oxford and King's College London. In late 2015, she returned to Ghent as coordinator of an interdisciplinary research project on medieval Greek poetry and as a teacher of Ancient Greek. From 2020, she coordinated the interfaculty honors program Think&Talk and led the Humanities Academy as director. Since 2023, she has been co-coordinator of VAIA, the Flemish AI Academy that strives to ensure that more people (can) learn more about AI.

Lifelong learning is right up Ilse's alley. Every year she takes a course somewhere, from Gothic to Learning Psychology. In 2021, she completed the Specific Teacher Education program and started Business Administration.