Bart Bongers

Bart Bongers studied Human Movement Sciences at Maastricht University, with a focus on clinical exercise physiology. He obtained his PhD in 2013 at Utrecht University (Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, University Medical Center Utrecht) on pediatric exercise testing in health and disease. Simultaneously, he completed his post-academic training to become registered as a medical physiologist in 2013.

In 2014, he joined Prof. N.L.U. van Meeteren’s group at the Department of Epidemiology at Maastricht University as a postdoctoral researcher and was appointed assistant professor in 2015. His work focused on optimizing perioperative care for patients undergoing major abdominal surgery through exercise diagnostics and physical exercise training interventions.

Since 2018, Bart is part of Prof. K. Meijer’s group at the Department of Nutrition and Movement Sciences, where he further developed his research line in geriatric exercise physiology. His translational and applied research focuses on the use of (cardiopulmonary) exercise testing and physical exercise training, including high-intensity interval training within prehabilitation, to improve outcomes in clinical populations, particularly patients undergoing cancer treatment.

Since 2022, he also holds an appointment at Maastricht University’s Department of Surgery, where he integrates exercise physiology with body composition and immune fitness phenotyping in the group of Prof. S.W.M. Olde Damink and Dr. S.S. Rensen, thereby strengthening the bench-to-bedside translation of physical exercise-based preoperative interventions.