Katinka van der Kooij

Katinka van der Kooij is an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, affiliated with the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences. She holds positions in the departments of Learning and Performance, IBBA LEARN! (Learning sciences), and AMS - Rehabilitation & Development. Her research focuses on human motor learning mechanisms and motivational factors influencing movement adaptation, particularly in rehabilitation contexts. She collaborates with game developers and developmental psychologists to explore feedback-driven learning strategies.

Her educational contributions include teaching courses on sensorimotor coordination and research projects at both bachelor and master levels. Current research projects include investigating reward-based motor learning in physical education and exploring the role of punishment in rehabilitation exercises. She has supervised one PhD thesis and contributed to datasets on visuomotor adaptation and exploration quantification.

Her work spans interdisciplinary collaborations, including projects on exergame motivation for older adults and development of motor learning tasks for children. She actively participates in academic activities such as peer review for journals like Eye and Vision and serves on organizational units like the Amsterdam Movement Sciences.