Kaat Desloovere
Kaat Desloovere is a full professor at KU Leuven and the research manager of the Clinical Motion Analysis Laboratory at the University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium. She obtained her Master’s degree in Physical Education and Kinesiology in 1989 and her Doctoral degree in 1996 from the KU Leuven. During her early postdoctoral years, she established the Clinical Motion Analysis Laboratory and worked there full-time as an expert in clinical motion analysis, as well as the service and research manager. Her research focuses on clinical motion analysis across various patient groups, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between clinical motion data (primarily gait) and underlying neuromuscular impairments.
Her research is organized into three main areas: (1) Methodological studies on assessments of neuromuscular symptoms and pathological function; (2) Fundamental studies on the underlying mechanisms of neuromuscular symptoms and pathological gait; and (3) Intervention studies aimed at validating novel methods and ensuring their clinical applicability.
Kaat Desloovere leads a multidisciplinary team of > 15 researchers, including PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, and scientific co-workers with both technical and clinical expertise. Additionally, she guides a clinical team of 5 to 8 co-workers at the Clinical Motion Analysis Laboratory. She has established extensive national and international collaborations with leading research centers in clinical movement analysis and has published over 270 peer-reviewed scientific papers.
Jörg Spörri is a titular professor and the Head of Sports Medical Research at Balgrist University Hospital, within the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Zurich. He earned his Master’s degree in „Human Movement Sciences“ from ETH Zurich in 2009. Jörg Spörri then moved to the University of Salzburg, where he completed his Doctoral degree in 2012 and habilitated with venia legendi in „Biomechanics“ in 2017. In 2022, he then received the venia legendi in „Experimental Sports Medicine“ at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zurich in 2022, before being given the titular professorship in 2023.
He and his research group focus on protecting the health of elite athletes and developing innovative diagnostic and rehabilitation concepts in sports medicine, ultimately benefiting recreational athletes and orthopedic patients. Their main research areas include the prevention and rehabilitation of sports injuries, with an emphasis on health monitoring and load management, early detection of injury-relevant physical deficits, objectification and individualization of diagnoses and „return-to-sport“ decisions, and the development of sport-specific training and therapy concepts.
Jörg Spörri, is a former athlete of the Swiss-Ski team and works closely together with national and international sport organizations. He has an excellent methodological background in epidemiology, performance diagnostics, sports biomechanics and musculoskeletal imaging, as well as many years of experience in the management of translational research projects, and has published over 120 peer-reviewed scientific papers to date.
Jörg Spörri
