Dick Botteldooren is a full professor at Ghent University where he leads research on Acoustics and teaches a variety of courses related to sound and computational methods. Dick Botteldooren was born in 1963 in Oudenaarde, Belgium. He obtained an MSc degree in Electronic Engineering in 1986 from Ghent University and a PhD in Applied Science in 1990 from Ghent University. In 1992 he became interested in acoustics and in particular environmental noise and obtained a post-doctoral fellowship with the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research. In April 1993, he became a part-time professor at Ghent University. Since October 2000 he is a full-time professor in acoustics. Between 2004 and 2013 he was the Editor-in-Chief of Acta Acustica united with Acustica, the journal of the European Acoustics Association. Until 2018 he was the president of the Belgian Acoustical Society; currently he is I-INCE vice-president for Europe and Africa.

He is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. He has made research contributions in the field of acoustic modeling, noise mapping, environmental sensor networks, computational intelligence, modeling perception of environmental sound, health impacts of sound, biomonitoring, urban sound planning, soundscapes, and noise policy support. This work was reported in 140 journal publications and several hundred conference contributions. Based on his expertise he was an advisor for national and international health councils, and noise policy makers.