Prof. Dr. med. Willem van Mechelen is professor of occupational and sports medicine at VU University Medical Center (VUmc) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is also director -shareholder of the VUmc spin-off company Evalua Nederland B.V. (‘Ltd’), non-executive board member of Arbo Unie B.V. and member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical & Scientific Expert Group.

Willem van Mechelen (1952) was born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After completion of his training as a PE-teacher he has worked for 9 years at an Amsterdam high school. He combined this with studying medicine at the University of Amsterdam. After his certification as an MD in 1982 he started working at various outpatient clinics as a sports and occupational physician. He also started in that year his scientific career with a part-time appointment at the Faculty of Human Movement Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He earned his PhD in Human Movement Sciences in 1992. He is a board certified occupational physician and a registered epidemiologist. Willem van Mechelen is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and of the European College of Sports Sciences (ECSS). He was honored with the ACSM citation award and the honorary memberships of the Royal Dutch PE-teachers Association and of the Dutch Society for Occupational Medicine and has been inaugurated in the Wall of Fame of the Amsterdam University for Applied Sciences. In 2017 the University of Brussels awarded him with an honorary doctorate degree.