Prof. Wouters is a visiting professor and co-researcher with the LBI for Lung Health and has also been publishing under affiliation with SFU since 2022. The European Respiratory Society, the world’s largest respiratory society, has now honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award for the significance of his life’s work and the outstanding quality of his research in clinical lung research. The award ceremony will take place during the ERS Congress, which will be held in Vienna from September 7 to 11.
The Rectorate and the Faculty of Medicine offer their sincere congratulations.
Emiel Wouters (born 16th of May 1953) is a respiratory physician and scientist with a remarkable career spanning over four decades. After qualifying in medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven and residencies in the university hospitals of Leuven and Maastricht, he was appointed as chest physician in 1984 at the department of respiratory medicine of the university medical center of Maastricht. After his appointment as professor in respiratory medicine at the Maastricht University in 1992, he has been instrumental in establishing and developing the respiratory department, which became a world-class academic centre for all aspects of respiratory care. Under his leadership CIRO, originally a Dutch asthma center, became an internationally acclaimed center of excellence for pulmonary rehabilitation and integrated care for chronic respiratory patients and was one of the pioneers of incorporating advanced care into the management of severe respiratory conditions. For his contributions to pulmonary rehabilitation, he received the Pioneer Award of the American Thoracic Society Pulmonary Rehabilitation Assembly in 2012. During his career, he supervised and mentored 47 residents in their training to become chest physicians.
Besides visionary leader, Emiel Wouters is a profilic researcher. After his PhD thesis on clinical application of impedance measurement in 1987, he laid the foundations for his research program on COPD, exploring multiple traits and physiological aspects of this complex condition. He pioneered in the recognition of COPD as a multimorbid condition and his research has contributed to advancing knowledge and practice of personalised COPD care. He published over 900 peer-reviewed papers on COPD and related topics with 75000 citations. His scholarly impact is reflected by his top ten ranking of lifetime scholars in pulmonology. He successfully supervised 80 PhD students. For his exceptional contribution to the field of respiratory medicine he was honoured with the Swieringa Medal in 2019, as well as with the Nutrim lifetime achievement award and the MUMC award in 2019 for his dedication to health care and his outstanding research career. He served various national and international societies in different roles and functions. He was elected as a fellow of the ERS in 2014 and of the Academia Europaea in 2022.