Willem van Mechelen#
| Membership Number: | 7360 |
| Membership type: | ORDINARY |
| Section: | BASIC AND CLINICAL TRANSLATIONAL SCIENCES |
| Elected: | 2025 |
| Main Country of Residence: | THE NETHERLANDS |
| ORCID: | 0000-0001-7136-6382 |
| Publication Link: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=van+mechelen+w&sort=date |
Present and Previous Positions
- 2025 - ongoing professor emeritus of Occupational and Sports Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Center, location Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
- 2022 - ongoing member non-executive board of NL Actief (member of Europe Active; i.e. the umbrella organisation of the European Fitness Industry)
- 2022 - ongoing independent chairman of the ‘Stichting Beheer Certificatieregeling Arbodiensten’ and chairman of College of Experts of this foundation, on behalf of the Dutch Ministery of Social Affairs
- 2021 - ongoing professor emeritus of Occupational and Sports Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Center, location VUmc
- 2010 - ongoing visiting professor School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- 2012 - ongoing honorary professor Health through Physical Activity, Lifestyle and Sport Research Centre, Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa
- 2009 - ongoing director-shareholder of De Bloeiende Lelie B.V. (personal holding), conducting ad hoc consultancy assignments for e.g. IOC, World Health Organisation,, Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs, etc..
- 2007 - ongoing honorary professor School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
- 2020 - 2024 non-executive board member Research School CaRe, Amsterdam the Netherlands
- 1999 - 2024 Professor of Occupational and Sports Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Center, location Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (roles until 2018: department (vice-)head; vice-head of the division of Public Health and Primary Care; (vice-)director of the Research Institute EMGO, from 2015 named as Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute)
Fields of Scholarship
- Sports medicine
- Cost-effectiveness studies
- Epidemiology
- Exercise science and medicine
- Youth health care
- Occupational health and medicine
- Public health
Honours and Awards
- Honours
- 1997 Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine
- The prof. dr. Willem van Mechelen Prize for the best BSc-thesis for BSc-students of the Institute for Higher Vocational Studies (i.e. PE, Sports Management and Nutrition) of the University of Amsterdam/Hogeschool van Amsterdam was installed by the Board of the University of Amsterdam and was awarded to students in the period 2006 - 2016
- 2006 Honorary professor of sports traumatology, Catholic University of Murcia, Spain
- 2007 Fellow of the European College of Sports Sciences
- 2007 - ongoing Honorary professor of Human Movement Studies, School of Human Movement studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
- 2010 - ongoing Visiting Honorary Professor School of Public Health, University College Dublin, Ireland
- 2012 - ongoing Honorary professor in the Department of Human Biology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, Republic of South Africa
- 2017 Honorary doctorate degree, awarded by the University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium
- 2017 Honorary member Royal Dutch Association of PE-teachers KVLO
- 2018 Inducted in the Wall of Fame of the University of Applied Sciences of Amsterdam HvA
- 2018 Honorary member Netherlands Society for Occupational Medicine NVAB
- 2022 Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion, granted by the King of the Netherlands
- Awards
- Nominee Academic Year Prize 2008 of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research and NRC Handelsblad
- 2008 Nominee Media Prize of the VU University Amsterdam
- 2008 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, USA) Award for leadership in Physical Activity and Public Health
- 2010 Citation (=lifetime achievement) Award of the American College of Sports Medicine
- Burgerpenning 2011, Lifetime achievement award of the Netherlands Society for Occupational Medicine (NVAB) (awarded only twice since as a lifetime achievement award since its instalment in 1957)
- Profile Prize VUmc 2014 for the ‘Ik Herstel study’, award for an outstanding achievement of VU University Medical Center
- Most impactful publication in 2016, awarded by the American Heart Association
- Named lectures and opening keynote lectures
- 1997 Heijermanslezing, Amsterdam Medical Center, The Netherlands
- 2004 HJ Docter lecture, Amsterdam Medical Center, The Netherlands
- 2007 Professor Josef Rutenfranz lecture, Paediatric Work Physiology bi-annual meeting, Tallinn, Estonia
- 2007 Professor Jeremy Morris lecture, Department of Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
- 2010 Dr. Anton Leuftink lecture, Dutch Society for Occupational Physicians, Zeist, The Netherlands
- 2011 Opening keynote lecture, ECCS annual conference, Liverpool
- 2012 Exercise Is Medicine opening keynote lecture, ACSM annual meeting San Francisco
- 2016 Opening keynote lecture, FIMS2016 World Congress of Sports Medicine, Slovenia
- 2017 Opening keynote lecture, IOC injury prevention conference, Monaco
- 2019 Leibniz lecture, Leibniz Kolleg, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
- 2020 HJ Docter lecture, Hoofddorp, The Netherlands
- 2021 John Sutton lecture, ACSM annual meeting, Washington DC
- 2023 Han Kemper lecture, PWP annual meeting, Cardiff, Wales
- 2024 Opening keynote lecture, FIMS2024 World Congress of Sports Medicine, Dubae, UAE
