Recruitment for Professor in Exercise and Muscle Physiology

A full-time academic position is available within the Exercise and Muscle Physiology Research Group at the Department of Movement Sciences of the Biomedical Sciences Group of KU Leuven.
The Department of Movement Sciences wishes to further strengthen the research group through the appointment of a third full-time tenured academic professor with complementary expertise in fundamental and mechanistic research, with clear relevance to exercise and muscle physiology.
The Exercise and Muscle Physiology Research Group studies how training, nutrition, physical (in)activity, and environmental stressors influence physical performance and health, with particular attention to skeletal muscle adaptation and integrative physiology. The research encompasses fundamental, translational, clinical, and applied human research lines, across models and populations, from cells and animals to clinical populations and athletes.
The research group aims to further develop into an excellent research center with interconnected research lines, outcomes, and services, built around complementary expertise from the muscle cell to the human in motion.
The research group combines laboratory and translational expertise with infrastructure for exercise testing, training interventions, environmental physiology (heat and simulated altitude), biosampling, biobanking, and biochemical analyses. Through collaborations within the Biomedical Sciences Group and beyond, the group has access to advanced platforms, including omics technologies, and to broad national and international networks.

Unit website

Research

• You will develop an innovative and internationally competitive research line within the domain of fundamental and mechanistic physiology, with a clear focus on exercise and/or muscle physiology.
• You contribute complementary expertise that strengthens the Exercise and Muscle Physiology research group, in close interaction with the existing mechanistic, translational, and integrative human research lines. A strong alignment is expected with one or more central themes of the research group, including muscle physiology, training and adaptation, environmental physiology, and sports nutrition.
• You bring strong methodological expertise in relevant state-of-the-art approaches, for example in cellular and molecular biology, omics, advanced biochemical and histological techniques, translational experimental models, or related methods that deepen the mechanistic capacity of the research group and strengthen the link with broader physiological issues relevant to performance and health.
• You actively contribute to ongoing and future joint research programs of the research group and the department, including joint national and international research proposals. The research group attaches explicit importance to high-quality interdisciplinary output that combines mechanistic depth with translational and applied relevance.
• You supervise doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers.
• You generate scientific output that meets the highest international standards.
• You are able to secure competitive financing from local, national, and international sources.

Education

• You assume teaching responsibilities within the degree programs of the Faculty of Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences and are responsible for high-quality education within the domain of physiology and the broader domain of movement sciences.
• In addition, you are expected to contribute to specialized education at the Master’s level regarding exercise testing, wet lab techniques, laboratory workflows, and advanced methodological approaches relevant to fundamental and mechanistic research in exercise and muscle physiology.
• You contribute to the pedagogical mission of the faculty and the university by supervising bachelor’s and master’s theses and research internships.
• You further develop your teaching in line with KU Leuven’s vision on active and inquiry-based education, and make use of the opportunities for teaching professionalization offered by the faculty and the university.

Services

• You contribute to scientific, societal, and internal service provision.
• You take an active role in relevant national and international scientific networks as well as professional networks within the domain of exercise physiology, muscle physiology, and related biomedical disciplines.
• Together with the other principal investigators in the research group, you contribute to the academic follow-up and further development of the group’s exercise physiology services for athletes and other external partners. These services include conducting exercise tests, heat tests, and simulated altitude tests. These tests are typically performed by doctoral researchers under academic supervision.
• You contribute to the local, national, and international visibility of the research group, the department, and the faculty.
• You help strengthen the valorization and societal relevance of the group’s research through knowledge transfer to stakeholders in health, physical activity, sport, and society at large, with a focus on translation into practice, policy, and societal engagement.
• In due course, you will assume policy and teaching responsibilities within the department, the faculty, or KU Leuven.

Profile

• You hold a PhD in a domain directly relevant to exercise physiology, muscle physiology, integrative physiology, or a closely related biomedical discipline.
• You possess a strong and internationally visible research profile in fundamental and mechanistic research, combined with a clear affinity for exercise and muscle physiology. Candidates with advanced methodological expertise that can strengthen the group’s fundamental research capacity, such as cellular and molecular approaches, omics, advanced biochemical or histological methods, and/or translational experimental models, are particularly encouraged.
• This profile must offer clear added value compared to the current positioning of the research group and strengthen the bridge between fundamental discovery, mechanistic deepening, and human relevance.
• Your expertise aligns with existing research lines and strengthens them through conceptual alignment, methodological depth, and scholarly collaboration. A demonstrable willingness and capacity to work across disciplinary and translational boundaries is therefore essential.
• We are looking for a colleague who values ​​both mechanistic and integrative/applied exercise (patho)physiology and is motivated to develop joint research projects and competitive collaborative grant proposals within and outside the research group.
• The quality of your research is demonstrated by publications in leading international peer-reviewed journals, evidence of scientific independence and originality, international research experience, and the potential to secure competitive funding.
• Experience in building collaborations across methods, models, and disciplines is a key asset. 
• Experience supervising doctoral students and/or postdoctoral researchers is expected.
• You possess demonstrable skills in academic teaching. Teaching experience within the research domain of the profile is a plus.
• You possess organizational skills, a collaborative attitude, and leadership potential within a university context.
• The official administrative language at KU Leuven is Dutch. If you do not speak Dutch (or do not speak sufficient Dutch) at the start of your appointment, KU Leuven will provide language training to enable you to participate in administrative meetings. Before you teach in Dutch or English, you will be given the opportunity to learn Dutch or English to the required level, respectively.

Offer

• We offer a full-time position in an intellectually challenging environment. KU Leuven is a research-intensive, internationally oriented university that conducts both fundamental and applied scientific research. It is strongly inter- and multidisciplinary oriented and strives for international excellence. To this end, it actively collaborates with its research partners at home and abroad. It offers its students an academic education based on high-level scientific research. 
• Depending on your qualifications and academic experience, you will be appointed or nominated to one of the ranks of the independent academic staff: Lecturer, Associate Professor, or (Full) Professor. Junior candidates are, in principle, appointed as lecturers on the tenure track. In the event of a positive evaluation after 5 years, the tenure track leads to an appointment as Associate Professor.
• You work in Leuven, a historic, dynamic, and vibrant city in the heart of Belgium, 20 minutes from Brussels and less than two hours from Paris, London, and Amsterdam.
• KU Leuven is well-equipped to welcome foreign professors and their families and offers practical support regarding immigration and administration, housing, childcare, learning Dutch, partner career coaching, etc.
• To facilitate scientific integration and research in the first phase, seed funding of 110,000 euros is offered to new professors who are recruited for at least 50%.

Interested?

For more information, please contact the Head of the Exercise and Muscle Physiology Research Group, Prof. Dr. Katrien Koppo, email: Katrien.Koppo@kuleuven.be, or the Chair of the Department of Movement Sciences, Prof. Dr. Jan Seghers, email: Jan.Seghers@kuleuven.be. For problems with online application, please contact solliciteren@kuleuven.be. 

Please include a motivation letter with your application, as well as a research plan in which you explain your added value to the research program of the Department of Movement Sciences and the Biomedical Sciences Group, and an educational vision in which you set out your vision on academic education and how it aligns with the KU Leuven vision on education.  We ask you to submit your application dossier in English.

KU Leuven attaches great importance to research integrity and ethical conduct and will therefore ask you to sign a declaration regarding research integrity upon appointment.

You can apply for this vacancy until 01/12/2026 via our online application system.