Rate My Professor Grant Van Der Ploeg

Dr Grant van der Ploeg is a Lecturer in the School of Allied Health and Human Performance, College of Health, at Adelaide University. His academic background includes a Bachelor of Science in the Biological Sciences from the University of Adelaide, followed by an Honours degree in Exercise Physiology and a PhD in Exercise Physiology, both from Flinders University. Before joining academia full-time, he accumulated over eight years of experience as a Sport Scientist in the Australian State Institute and Academy of Sport network, working in Darwin and Canberra. In his role as a Performance Analyst, he collaborated with high-profile elite sporting teams, such as the Australian National Men’s Hockey Team, known as the Kookaburras, during the 2012 London Olympics; the Australian National Junior Men’s Hockey Team, the Burras, at the 2016 Junior World Cup in Lucknow, India; and the AFL Geelong Football Club, the Cats, across the 2012-2016 seasons. Currently, he serves as an Exercise Scientist specialising in Performance Analysis within the Academic Unit of Allied Health and Human Performance, previously at the University of South Australia.

Dr van der Ploeg's research focuses on leveraging technology to enhance the performances of elite athletes by providing players, teams, and coaches with a better understanding of their sport. His scholarly contributions span body composition assessment, athlete monitoring, and sports performance analysis. Notable publications include: "Percent body fat via DEXA: comparison with a four-compartment model" (van der Ploeg et al., Journal of Applied Physiology, 2003, cited extensively); "Use of anthropometric variables to predict relative body fat determined by a four-compartment body composition model" (European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2003); "Characterisation of offensive and defensive game play trends in the Australian Football League (1999-2019)" (International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 2020); "The reliability and validity of two different inertial measurement units in youth basketball players" (Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 2023); and "Evaluation of athlete monitoring tools across 10 weeks of elite youth basketball training: An Explorative Study" (Sports, 2023). He is eligible to supervise Master's and PhD students and currently acts as principal supervisor for a Master's candidate researching normative training values for elite junior sprint-kayak athletes, and co-supervisor for another on errors in Suncorp Super Netball. Additionally, he teaches several courses including Exercise Physiology 1 and 2, Applied Exercise Physiology, Performance Analysis and Player Monitoring, and Foundations in Human Movement, Exercise and Sports Science.