prof. L.H.V. (Lucas) van der Woude

English Summary Dr. van der Woude (1954) received an MSc (1982) and PhD (1989: Manual wheelchair propulsion: an ergonomics perspective) in Human Movement Sciences. From January 1989 until January 1996 he was an assistant professor at the Department of Health Science, and subsequently at the Department of Kinesiology, Faculty of Human Movement Sciences, VU University, Amsterdam. 

In December 2000 he was appointed associate professor (since 2003) at the Department of Kinesiology, Faculty of Human Movement Sciences and he was responsible for the health care/rehabilitation program. He was also affiliated to the Rehabilitation Amsterdam as researcher. Together with Prof Dr Arnold de Haan, he supervised as Principal Investigator, the  research line '(Patho)physiology and mechanics of human movement'  of the research school MOVE. 

Since January 2009, Dr van der Woude is professor in 'Human Movement, Rehabilitation and Functional Recovery' at the Center for Human Movement Sciences of the University Medical Center, University of Groningen. He chairs the specialisation 'Rehabilitation & Functional Recovery' and is member of the Management Team of the Center for Human Movement Sciences. He is formally affiliated as a researcher to the Center for Rehabilitation, location Beatrixoord, UMCG, RUG. He teaches in human movement sciences, rehabilitation and ergonomics. 

His main interests are in the physiology, biomechanics and ergonomics of upper body arm work within the context of rehabilitation (technology). He specialized in research in manual wheelchair propulsion and mobility restoration in subjects with a spinal cord injury. Physical activity and adapted sports in the context of rehabilitation are strong local developments, expressed in the collaborative (with Dr Rienk Dekker, Center for Rehabilitation, UMCG) initiation of the Northern Expert center for Sports, exercise and Handicap (NESH).

December 15th 2009, Van der Woude held his inaugural lecture at the Academy Building of the RUG, Broerstraat 5, under the title: 'Veranderen en toch jezelf blijven' ('Changing, yet staying yourself'), which text is added as a pdf, in Dutch only (printtekst-oratie.pdf). 

Dr van der Woude also is a visiting professor for the European Masters Degree in Adapted Physical Activity at the Faculty of Human Movement & Rehabilitation Sciences of the Catholic University Leuven, Belgium, and is an adjunct associate professor at the Department of Rehabilitation Science & Technology, University of Pittsburgh, USA. From June 22nd to October 4th 2002 he enjoyed a sabbatical as a visiting professor to the the Department and Human Engineering Research Laboratory of Pitt.  Some impressions of this inspiring period are available in writing and ppt (Dutch). In March and April 2008 he enjoyed a second sabbatical and visited the project ‘Cure for Paralysis’ of the Miller Medical School of the University of Miami as an invited professor on behalf of Prof Mark Nash, Dr Rachel Cowan and with support of NIH.

In April 2009 Dr van der Woude and his colleagues organized the '4th International State-of-the-Art Congress "Rehabilitation: Mobility, Exercise & Sports", April 7-9, 2009', in Amsterdam. Proceedings of the congress were published by IOS Press (www.iospress.nl) and in a special issue of  Disability and Rehabilitation in 2010. The 5th edition of this congress was organized in Groningen from April 23-25, 2014 with colleagues of the Centers for Human Movement Sciences and Rehabilitation Medicine of the UMCG and the colleagues of the FBW-VU in Amsterdam. Open acess proceedings are available at Rehabmove2014, while again a special issue has been published in Disability and Rehabilitation.

Currently he is PI in the research programme SMARTmovements in the Research Institute SHARE of the Graduate School of Medical Sciences and supervises different PhD projects and students in different networks of collaborations in and outside the University Medical Center Groningen. His research work has produced over 240 international peer-reviewed (co-) authored publications.

Van der Woude is program leader of the ALLRISC program and the program 'Restoration of mobility in spinal cord injury rehabilitation', both are national networks of different research projects in clinical rehabilitation and  funded by ZonMw and Fonds NutsOhra (www.scionn.nl). 

His continued interest in adapted sports allowed him to receive on September 3rd 2011 the Paralympic Scientific Award 2011 of the International Paralympic Committee during the Vista conference in Bonn. In November 2011 he was invited by Akademia Trenerska of the National Institute of Sports (Warsaw) to present for the Polish Paralympic coaches. Per August 2013 he is Visiting Professor in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health SCiences of the Loughborough University, UK. This is based on a longterm collaboration with Prof Vicky Tolfrey, Director of the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sports in this School.

Van der Woude is member of scientific the board of rehabilitation center Heliomare (Wijk aan Zee) in the Netherlands, the scientific working group of the Dutch Flemish Spinal Cord Society and of the scientific board of Dwarlaesiefonds. He is a member of the working group ‘Rehabilitation & Sports’ of the Dutch Association of Rehabilitation Physicians and of the Special Interest Group Rehabilitation of the Dutch Association of Human Movement Sciences (VvBN). He is among others a member of ACSM, ISB, IEEE and the HumanFactors.NL.

For a detailed CV of Lucas HV van der Woude in Dutch (see  luc-cv050810.pdf ).

For some further personal information: see short stories in 'Bewogen', March 2009, Summer 2010, in Dutch again.

As off May 1st 2020, Prof Han Houdijk will step into my footsteps as professor in Clinical Human Movement Sciences and as chair of the accent Rehabilitation of Human Movement Sciences at UMCG. He can be reached at H.Houdijk@umccg.nl. I will be at the Human Movement Sciences department of the UMCG for one day a week till 6-1-2021. In that day - and beyond 2021 - I will continue to co-supervise my PhDs that are under my responsibility.