Specialization
Epidemiology, Sports Injury, Injury Prevention
Focus of research
Professionally
I am a human movement scientist and epidemiologist. I hold a University Research Chair as a full professor at the Amsterdam UMC Department of Public and Occupational Health and the Amsterdam Movement Science Research Institute. I am the Editor in Chief of BMJ Open Sports & Exercise Medicine, the director of the Amsterdam Collaboration on Health and Safety in Sports (one of the 11 IOC research centres), and the director of the Amsterdam Institute of Sports Sciences (AISS). My research revolves around preventing sports and physical activity-related injuries, including monitoring, cost-effectiveness and implementation issues. I supervise several (inter-)national PhDs and post-docs and has (co-) authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications around these topics.
Personally
My dad took me to local running events when I was little, and ever since, I have been an avid runner. When I was a junior, I competed at a national level, finishing top 5 in cross country and top 10 in middle distance events. An injury prevented me from continuing at that level and made me decide to study Sports Science to understand better what happened to me. Many years later, I still run, but I moved my interest to ultra-distance events, preferably multi-day trail runs.