Oana Druta is Assistant Professor with the research group Urbanism and Urban Architecture at the TU/e Department of Built Environment. Oana is a social/cultural geographer and urban planner, researching housing and inclusive urban living. Her topics of interest include shared and flexible housing, urban commons and participation; housing pathways through the life-course; homeownership, aging in place, and intergenerational relations. To date, she has researched and written about urban housing phenomena in Detroit, Tokyo, Birmingham (UK), Bucharest, Milan, and Amsterdam. Oana is a board member of the Eindhoven Young Academy of Engineering and represents TU Eindhoven in the NWO Social Sciences and Humanities Roundtables. Within Built Environment, Oana coordinates the activities of the Urban Innovation Think Tank. She is an associate editor for the International Journal of Housing Policy and active on the advisory boards of Housing Studies, and Housing and Society. In 2021, with colleagues at the University of Milan Bicocca and KU Leuven, Oana initiated a new working group of the European Network for Housing Research named Housing and Young People.

Originally from Bucharest, Romania, Oana Druta received a BA degree from the University of Tsukuba (Japan) in 2009. During this time she was a recipient of the Japan Ministry of Education Scholarship. Later, she completed her Masters of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan (USA), graduating in 2011. During her Master's studies, Oana received the Raoul Wallenberg Scholarship for students advancing social justice, and the award for exceptional service to the Taubman College community at the University of Michigan. Her capstone project was awarded the prize for Best Student Project by the American Institute of Certified Planners. In 2012, she started her PhD at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (University of Amsterdam) embedded in the ERC funded project HOUWEL. In 2014, she was a visiting researcher at the University of Birmingham (UK), Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan) and Bucharest University where she conducted fieldwork into the housing careers of young adults. Oana obtained her PhD in 2017, with her thesis on 'Young adult homeownership pathways and intergenerational support'. After having been a postdoctoral researcher at UvA, she was appointed assistant professor at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in May 2018.