Nathalie Pattyn, MD, MPsy, PhD, received a degree in medicine from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (magna cum laude, 2001), a Master in Clinical Psychology from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (cum laude, 2004), a PhD in Psychological Sciences from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2007) and a PhD in Social and Military Sciences from the Royal Military Academy (2007).
Her PhD research focused on psychophysiological measures of cognitive performance in aviation and space.
She also holds a postgraduate degree in Aerospace Medicine (Centre de Médecine Aéronautique, 2001); a postgraduate degree in Emergency Medicine (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2003); a postgraduate degree in General Practice (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2003); a postgraduate degree in Disaster Medicine (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2006); and a Master in Global and Remote Healthcare (Plymouth University, 2017).
She completed her Junior Officer Course with the Belgian Defense College in 2005, and her Staff Officer Course in 2008. She has a mixed clinical, research and operational background, having been deployed as a medical officer in various Middle Eastern and African countries, and having completed missions in Antarctica for a total duration of more than two years.
Her longest deployment was 15 months to the Halley VI Research Station in Antarctica (British Antarctic Survey), where she worked as the station physician while setting up a new biomedical research laboratory for the European Space Agency. She is currently still working as an emergency physician and a flight surgeon.
Her research interests include the psychophysiological measures of performance in elite populations; and Human Factors approach to isolated and confined environments, ranging from space to submarines.
Her research won numerous awards, ranging form the best graduate project in aerospace medicine in 2002 (European Space Foundation), over the André Kahn award (Belgian national award for best research in sleep) in 2010 and the American Physiological Society APS monthly award for best published research in 2017.
In 2010, she founded a research unit within the Royal Military Academy, dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of human performance in operational environments. This led her to be the project manager for designing a tailored Human Performance Program for the Belgian SF Gp, the tier one unit of the SOF community in Belgium.
She is currently an Associate Professor in Physiopathology at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (since 2014) and in Human Performance at the Royal Military Academy (since 2008).
Email: nathalie.pattyn@rma.ac.be Phone: +32 (0)2-44-13783 Office: D20.39