Chantal Hulshof received the prestigious Travel & Research Fellowship grant during the International Symposium on the Diabetic Foot (ISDF) held in the Hague in May '23. The grant is made possible by Urgo Medical. With this grant and the Amsterdam UMC Young Talent Fund 2023 (received in October 2022), Chantal will pay a research visit the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. In Australia, Chantal will combine data from 2 prospective cohort studies (1 Australian and 1 Dutch), to analyze the underlying biomechanical, activity and adherence profiles of people with diabetes with a foot ulcer. This will provide new scientific insights, and gives the opportunity to test self-developed data analysis scripts in a different setting. It also strengthens the international collaboration between the diabetic foot clinic and researchers from Amsterdam UMC and QUT.

Chantal is currently working as a PhD candidate on the DIALOAD project together with Prof. dr. Sicco Bus (promotor), Prof. dr. Mirjam Pijnappels (promotor) and Dr. Jaap van Netten (co-promotor). With DIALOAD they investigate the underlying biomechanical, activity and adherence profiles of people with diabetes and develop a comprehensive load-capacity model of foot ulcers. In DIALOAD, 2 prospective cohort studies have been completed (1 in people without a foot ulcer, 1 in people with a foot ulcer). Thanks to this grant, these will now be combined with a similar Australian study. Chantal aims to complete and defend her PhD-thesis in 2024.(contact:c.m.hulshof@amsterdamumc.nl)