van Weeren R.

René graduated in 1983 from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, and stayed there at the Department of General and Large Animal Surgery. In 1989 he defended his PhD-thesis entitled "Skin displacement in equine kinematic gait analysis". 
From 1991 until 1993 he worked at the Veterinary School of the "Universidad Nacional" in Heredia, Costa Rica. After returning to Utrecht, he qualified as a diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1994 and became an associate professor in 1996. He was appointed as full professor in Equine Musculoskeletal Biology in 2007. 
Currently he is mainly involved in research and was the manager of a large project focusing on the influence of exercise on the development of the equine musculoskeletal system and osteochondrosis. His areas of interest are articular cartilage, tendons and biomechanics. He has been a supervisor of 18 PhD students, and is currently supervising 8 others. He is an associate editor of Equine Veterinary Journal and has been external examiner for PhD students in the UK, France, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Norway and Finland. He is author of over 175 peer-reviewed scientific publications or book chapters. He is currently Head of Department of the Utrecht Department of Equine Sciences.