Jan Bourgois
Jan Bourgois is a professor of exercise physiology at Ghent University. Besides teaching ‘Exercise physiology’, ‘Sports physiology’ and ‘Lifeguarding and CPR’ at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, his research is focused mainly on acute and chronic adaptations to exercise in healthy and pathological conditions (i.e. oxygen update kinetics and oxygenation responses at the brain and muscles), sports physiology (e.g. sailing, kitesurfing, rowing) and environmental exercise physiology (e.g. apnea and diving response, heat and cold stress, beach lifeguarding). He has written and co-authored more than 80 international peer-reviewed scientific research papers, 4 books as editor/co-editor and 39 book chapters. Prof. Bourgois has presented more than 150 lectures at national and international conferences and seminars. He played, as co-founder, a major role in the professional development of the Centre of Sports Medicine at the Ghent University Hospital, where he works as an exercise physiologist since 1993 and an academic consultant since 2008.
Prof. Jan Bourgois is a member of the ‘High Performance Sport Steering Committee’ of the Flemish Government since 2008 and was holder of the ‘Flemish Chair of High Performance Sports’ from the Flemish Government between 2014 and 2016, investigating the ‘interaction between training lolad, sleep and immunity’. Since 1988, Prof. Bourgois works closely with world class (Olympic) athletes and coaches in a variety of individual (e.g. rowing, kayaking, sailing, athletics,…) and team sports (e.g. basketball and soccer). He is a former international sailor (helmsman Transat 1980, Fastnet Race 1981, Channel race 1981, World Championships 1981 and Whitbread Round The World Race 1981 – 1982, and Belgian Champion 2009 in the Olympic Finn Class) and rower (4 times Belgian Champion and Belgian National Team 1985 – 1988). Living in Ostend near the seashore (North Sea), in his leisure time Prof. Jan Bourgois is a sailor, kite-surfer, stand-up paddler (SUP) and open water swimmer.
