Dominique Waterval was born on May 7th, 1978. After secondary school, he studied general economics from 1996 to 2002 at Maastricht University. Upon graduation, he began his career as a teacher within a student-centred curriculum. This experience triggered his passion for education and spurred his career in this sector. This ambition became formalized nine years later when he obtained his Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE).

From 2003-2004, he worked as an educational trainer in problem-based learning at a university in Mozambique. He was responsible for empowering graduated Mozambican staff to develop, manage, teach, and evaluate student-centred education. After returning to the Netherlands, he briefly worked on e-portfolios and online remedial teaching projects, after which he again moved abroad. This time, he moved to Saudi Arabia along with his wife to work at a newly established medical college in Riyadh. During this period, he was responsible for establishing an assessment unit within the Department of Medical Education.

Upon returning to the Netherlands, he worked as an educational consultant for the Centre for Innovation for Educational Programmes (CINOP). During his time at CINOP, he assisted various vocational schools in the Netherlands in making the transition towards competence-based education.

In 2009, he returned to Maastricht and began working as a project manager for a medical curriculum partnership between the Faculty of Health Medicine and Life Science and a newly established college of medicine in Saudi Arabia. He was responsible for all internal and external project activities and was involved in many of the training workshops over the 11-year duration of the partnership. Dominique Waterval has a broad interest in education, as illustrated by his recent positions as student counsellor and operational manager of the school of Health Professions Education. His research interest is in the implementation of student-centred forms of education, especially in non-Western settings.

Dominique lives in Eijsden together with Valerie and their two children Erin and Quinten.