D.W. Donker

D.W. Donker is Professor of Cardiovascular and Respiratory Physiology at the University of Twente's Faculty of Science and Technology, appointed in March 2021. He concurrently serves as senior staff intensivist-cardiologist at University Medical Centre Utrecht's Intensive Care Centre, driving translational research that integrates advanced technologies into clinical practice for acute patient care.

Education:

• Medical Degree from Essen, Germany
• PhD (2008) from Maastricht University on 'Cardiac mechanomyopathy - integrating the picture from cell to beating heart'
• Cardiology specialization and Intensive Care training at Maastricht University Medical Center
• Academic-clinical experience in Cardiological Critical Care at La Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, Paris (2019)

His research centers on complex cardiovascular-respiratory pathophysiology in critical care, with recent emphasis on optimizing cardiac/pulmonary extracorporeal life support through clinical implementation and mechanistic studies. Expertise in echocardiography and patient-specific computer simulations provides comprehensive physiological insights that directly enhance bedside decision-making. He actively collaborates with clinicians, researchers, and industry partners to accelerate technology translation.

Leading the Cardiovascular and Respiratory Physiology group within Biomedical Imaging & Sensing at TechMed Centre, he integrates engineering principles with medical science across technical medicine, biomedical technology, and clinical medicine curricula to train next-generation clinician-scientists.