About Me
Jan Van Houcke grew up in Oudenaarde, Belgium. He finished high school in 2007 in the field of science-mathematics with great distinction and started his medical studies at Ghent University. During his studies, he completed a thesis on the kinematics of the hip joint in patients with femoroacetabular impingement at the Ghent University Department of Orthopaedics under the mentorship of Prof. Emmanuel Audenaert and Prof. Christophe Pattyn. Jan graduated from medical school in 2014 with great distinction and began training as an orthopaedic resident. His growing interest in hip biomechanics led to his receipt of a prestigious PhD scholarship from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). With this funding, Jan continued to investigate the mechanical causes for cartilage lesions in the hip joint. As part of this research, he used inverse dynamics models to quantify hip kinetics during deep squatting in asymptomatic volunteers. In addition, he gained experience in 3D morphometrics and statistical shape modelling. In 2017, he joined the esteemed Anderson group at the University of Utah Orthopaedic Research Laboratory for a research rotation under the supervision of Dr. Andrew Anderson. Jan is currently working on contact mechanics of the hip joint, whereby he will validate a computationally efficient discrete element analysis method for use in patient-specific and population-wide applications.