Professor in Exercise and Muscle Physiology

• You hold a PhD in a field directly relevant to exercise physiology, muscle physiology, integrative physiology, or a closely related biomedical discipline.
• You have a strong and internationally visible research profile in fundamental and mechanistic research, combined with a clear affinity for exercise and muscle physiology. We particularly welcome 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.
• Your expertise complements the research group’s existing research lines and strengthens them through conceptual alignment, methodological depth, and scientific collaboration. A demonstrated willingness and ability to work across disciplinary and translational boundaries is therefore essential.
• We seek a colleague who values both mechanistic and integrative/applied exercise (patho)physiology, and who is motivated to develop joint research projects and competitive collaborative grant proposals within and beyond 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 acquire competitive funding.
• Experience in building collaborations across methods, models, and disciplines is an important asset.
• Experience in supervising PhD students and/or postdoctoral researchers is expected.
• The candidate has demonstrable skills in academic education. Teaching experience within the research domain of the position is an asset.
• You possess organisational skills and have a cooperative attitude. You also possess leadership capacities within a university context.
• The official administrative language used at KU Leuven is Dutch. If you do not speak Dutch (or do not speak it well) at the start of employment, KU Leuven will provide language training to enable you to take part in administrative meetings. Before teaching courses in Dutch or English, you will be given the opportunity to learn Dutch, respectively English, to the required standard.

At the Department of Movement Sciences of the Group of Biomedical Sciences at KU Leuven, a full-time academic position is available within the Exercise and Muscle Physiology Research Group. The Department of Movement Sciences aims to further strengthen this research group through the appointment of a third full-time academic member 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 exercise training, nutrition, physical (in)activity, and environmental stressors affect performance and health, with particular attention to skeletal muscle adaptation and integrative physiology. Its research spans fundamental, translational, clinical, and applied human research lines, across models and populations from cells and animals to clinical populations and athletes. 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.

• We are offering full-time employment in an intellectually challenging environment. KU Leuven is a research-intensive, internationally oriented university that carries out both fundamental and applied scientific research, with a strong interdisciplinary focus and a commitment to international excellence.
• Depending on your track record, qualifications and experience, you will be appointed to or tenured in one of the grades of the senior academic staff: assistant professor, associate professor, professor, or full professor. Junior candidates are normally appointed as assistant professor on a tenure track of five years, followed by permanent appointment after positive evaluation.
• You will work in Leuven, a historic, dynamic and lively city located in the heart of Belgium, within 20 minutes from Brussels, the capital of the European Union, and less than two hours from Paris, London and Amsterdam.
• KU Leuven is well set to welcome foreign professors and their family and provides practical support with regard to immigration & administration, housing, childcare, learning Dutch, partner career coaching, etc.
• To facilitate scientific onboarding and accelerate research in the first phase a starting grant of 110.000 euro is offered to new professors appointed for at least 50%.