About Dr Dan van den Hoek

Dr Dan van den Hoek is a researcher, educator, and speaker specialising in human performance, leadership, and resilience. His work blends evidence, lived experience, and practical insight to help organisations understand how people perform under pressure and rebuild after adversity. Dan’s research spans human performance analysis, strength adaptation, para-sport performance, and the psychology of recovery.

Alongside his academic and applied research background, Dan has held leadership roles in para and adaptive sport. He served as Vice-Captain of the Gold Coast Suns Wheelchair Football Team in 2024, coached the team in 2025, and was Vice-Captain of the Queensland Wheelchair Football Team in 2024. He founded The Strength Initiative in 2021 and is a member of the executive for Queensland Wheelchair Rugby League. These leadership experiences inform the practical, human-centred perspective he brings to keynote presentations and consulting work across sport, health, education, and industry.

Biography 

Dr Dan van den Hoek (PhD) is a researcher, educator, and speaker whose work focuses on human performance, leadership, and resilience. His expertise includes performance analytics, para-powerlifting, athlete monitoring, strength benchmarking, and the science of decision making under pressure. He has developed large-scale normative strength datasets, contributed to para-sport performance analysis, and led applied research projects that inform coaching, leadership development, and organisational practice.

A serious car crash earlier in his career became a turning point in how Dan understands performance and recovery. The experience sharpened his interest in decision-making under pressure, long-term adaptation, and the gap between theory and lived reality. This perspective now underpins how he approaches research, speaking, and advisory work, particularly in environments where clarity matters and stakes are high.

Following this period, Dan rebuilt his physical capability through deliberate structure and long-term planning, completing an Ironman Triathlon as a milestone in that recovery process. This experience reinforced his belief that performance is rarely about heroic moments, and more often about what can be measured, adjusted, and sustained over time.

In his independent practice, Dan works with organisations across corporate, government, education, sport, and health. He specialises in translating research into practical frameworks that strengthen leadership capability, team performance, and high pressure decision making. He also develops analytical dashboards and impact reporting that help organisations measure learning, behavioural shifts, resilience, and performance outcomes over time.

Dan has been featured on ABC Ockham’s Razor, ABC Sydney, Radio New Zealand, ESSA, and The Conversation. He is recognised for his ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity through evidence-informed storytelling and grounded insight. His work helps people understand performance more deeply, recover with greater clarity, and lead more effectively when situations become uncertain or demanding.

Professional Highlights

• Invited speaker for the International Federation for Surgery and Other Therapies for Obesity (IFSO) World Congress, Melbourne, 2024.

• Invited speaker for the Australia and New Zealand Metabolic and Obesity Surgery Society (ANZMOSS) National Conference, Cairns, 2022.

• Awarded Senior Fellowship, Advance HE (SFHEA) in 2021, and Associate Fellowship for embedding Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives in curriculum in 2025.

• Recipient of the ACU Faculty of Health Sciences Staff Values Award 2019 and 2021.

• Recipient of the ACU Vice Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award for Community Engagement, 2019.

• Recipient of the Pierre de Coubertin Award from the Australian Olympic Committee, 2005.

Key Expertise Areas

• Leadership behaviour and capability
• Decision quality in complex environments
• Resilience and adaptive performance
• Human factors in communication and teamwork
• Performance analytics for organisational clarity
• Evidence-informed program design
• Impact evaluation and reporting