Prof. Xenofon Baraliakos is the Head of Rheumatology at the Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet Herne and Professor for Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.

He studied Human Medicine at the universities of Magdeburg and Berlin, Germany and received his PhD degree in 2005 with the first study on the MRI outcomes of patients with ankylosing spondylitis before and after therapy with monoclonal antibodies against TNF-a.

Prof. Baraliakos received his official Board Degrees in orthopaedic surgery in 2007 and in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology in 2014. His research interests include clinical and academic research in the field of spondyloarthritides, with special emphasis on imaging outcomes and treatment of the disease.

Among others, Dr Baraliakos won the EWRR Award, in 2005, the EULAR Young Investigator Award, in 2006 and 2008, the German patient’s AS Society Award in 2010 and the 2014 Award for Excellence in Clinical Research from the European Society for Clinical Investigations.

Dr Baraliakos is the current President of ASAS (Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society) and President-Elect of EULAR (European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology). He has served as Chair of the EULAR standing committee for musculoskeletal imaging. He holds membership of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) and the German Society of Rheumatology. He also acts as a reviewer and is an Associate Editor in a number of major rheumatological journals.

Prof. Kay-Geert Hermann is a professor of radiology specialized in musculoskeletal imaging with a focus on arthritides. His research is dedicated mainly to the axial skeleton but the peripheral joints as well. The majority of his research projects are in the field of spondyloarthritis. He also has a strong track in applying innovative technology within medical education and is leading the team behind the BerlinCaseViewer app. He is an active member of ASAS, ISS, ESSR, DGMSR, and DRG and has won the Conrad Wilhelm Roentgen award in 2011, Felix Wachsmann award in 2014, and DVMB research prize in 2015. In 2019 he was promoted to associate professor.

Pedro Machado MD, PhD, is a Professor of Rheumatology and Neuromuscular Diseases, and Consultant Rheumatologist at University College London (UCL), University College London Hospitals (UCH) and Northwick Park Hospital, United Kingdom. His research interests include the assessment and prediction of outcomes in rheumatic diseases, with a focus on axial spondyloarthritis. He has published >260 peer-reviewed articles. In 2023, he was awarded the prestigious Michael Mason Award by the British Society for Rheumatology (BSR), for “excellence in clinical and scientific research”, and in 2024, the EULAR Honorary Award in Rheumatology for “outstanding service in accomplishing the objectives of EULAR”.
Dr Machado is a member of the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society (ASAS) and British Society of Spondyloarthritis (BRITSpA) Executive Committees, and past chair of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) Standing Committee on Epidemiology and Health Services Research (SCEHSR).

Prof. Helena Marzo-Ortega, LMS MRCP PhD, is an Honorary Professor of Clinical Translational Rheumatology at the University of Leeds and a Consultant Rheumatologist and Lead of the multi-award-winning Leeds Combined Specialist Spondyloarthropathy service at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, where she has developed a successful multi-disciplinary, multi-specialty clinical and research hub. Helena is committed towards excellence in service delivery and translational research to improve the lives of people affected with rheumatic disease and Spondyloarthritis.

Dr Anna Moltó is a rheumatologist and consultant at Cochin Hospital in Paris, France. As a researcher in clinical epidemiology, Dr Moltó’s research focuses on the natural history of early axial Spondyloarthritis, the evaluation of effectiveness in observational trials and on pregnancy outcomes in patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases.
Dr Moltó is a past leader of Young ASAS (Assessment of SpondyloArthritis International Society) and is currently the Chair of the Public Health and Epidemiology subcommittee within the research Committee of EULAR.
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Victoria Navarro Compán MD, PhD, MsC is a rheumatologist working at the University Hospital La Paz and IdiPazin Madrid, Spain since 2015. She did her training as rheumatologist at University Hospital Virgen Macarena in Sevilla, Spain, and obtained her doctoral degree at the Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands. Currently, she combines clinical practice and research at La Paz University Hospital. Her main focus is in clinical research in the field of spondyloarthritis. She has participated in and led national and international research projects in the area of spondyloarthritis, including the Update of the ASAS-OMERACT core domain for axial spondyloarthritis. She is currently a member the ASAS Executive Committee, also acting as executive secretary and President-Elect. She is associate editor of Seminars in Arthritis and Rheumatism journal and member of the international advisory board of the Lancet Rheumatology.

Denis Poddubnyy, MD, PhD, MSc (Epi) is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a Clinician Investigator at the University Health Network (UHN), Toronto, Canada. From 2016 till 2024 he served as a University Professor and Head of Rheumatology at the Campus Benjamin Franklin of Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany, and as the leader of the “Spondyloarthritis” research group at the German Rheumatology Research Centre (DRFZ). In July 2024, he was appointed to a full-time clinical academic position in the Division of Rheumatology Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto at the rank of Professor and as a Clinician Investigator at the UHN in Toronto, Canada. Since 2003, his research has been focused on the early diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of patients with spondyloarthritis, including psoriatic arthritis. Dr. Poddubnyy is a member of the Executive Committee of the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis International Society (ASAS) and a member of the Steering Committee of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA). He is the author of more than 250 publications on spondyloarthritis, including peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

Mikhail Protopopov, MD, PhD, is a rheumatologist and a researcher in the Medical Clinic for Gastroenterology, Infectious Diseases and Rheumatology, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany. He graduated from Kazan State Medical University, Russia in 2008 and completed his PhD there in 2014. His research focuses on the prediction of radiographic progression, early recognition, outcomes and imaging in spondyloarthritis.

Mikhail has been an ASAS member since 2017, and was the co-leader of Young ASAS between January 2023 and January 2025

Sofia Ramiro, MD, PhD, is a rheumatologist and a senior researcher at Leiden University Medical Center and Zuyderland Medical Center, the Netherlands. She graduated from Medical School at Nova Medical School, Lisbon, Portugal. She completed a Master’s in Epidemiology at Maastricht University and obtained her PhD on long-term outcomes in ankylosing spondylitis at the University of Amsterdam. She is a clinical epidemiologist focusing on outcomes research. Her main interests are axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), imaging and methodological and analytical aspects. 

Sofia Ramiro served as a Chair for EMEUNET, the Emerging EULAR Network, and also of Young Assessment of Spondyloarthritis international Society (ASAS). She was a member of the EULAR Scientific Committee for 2016-2020 and is currently a member of the ASAS Executive Committee and the EULAR Quality of Care Committee. Sofia Ramiro has authored more than 260 peer-reviewed manuscripts.

Alexandre Sepriano MD, PhD is a rheumatologist at the rheumatology department of Hospital Egas Moniz, Lisbon, Portugal and an Assistant Professor of Rheumatology at the NOVA Medical School, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. He has done his PhD on the early recognition and long-term imaging outcomes of patients with axial spondyloarthritis at the Leiden University. Dr. Seprianois a member of the EULAR’s Quality of Care committee and of the Public Health and Epidemiology Research Sub-Committee. He has been involved in the development of EULAR recommendations for the management of patients with axial spondyloarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. His research focuses on early recognition, treatment and long-term outcomes of spondyloarthritis. Alexandre has been an ASAS member since 2016 and was the co-leader of Young ASAS between January 2023 and January 2025

Filip van den Bosch is Head-of-Clinic and Associate Professor of Rheumatology in the Department of Rheumatology at the University Hospital of Ghent University. Dr Van den Bosch was awarded his PhD degree in 2003, with his doctoral thesis focusing on the exploration of the therapeutic potential of TNF-alpha blockade in spondyloarthritis patients and more specifically in patients with bowel-related arthritis.

Dr Van den Bosch is an executive committee member of the ‘Assessments in SpondyloArthritis International Society’ (ASAS); and a member of the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA). He has been an investigator in several international or investigator-initiated clinical trials and mechanism-of-action studies in the areas of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and especially the diseases belonging to the spondyloarthritis concept. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed international publications and chapters in textbooks.

Floris van Gaalen graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam in 2000. In June 2005 he obtained his doctorate at the University of Leiden. For his thesis he received the 2004 Young Investigator Award from the European League against Rheumatism (EULAR). He completed his specialist training in internal medicine in 2009 and in rheumatology in 2010. 

Since January 2011 he has been a medical specialist at the Department of Rheumatology of the LUMC in Leiden, the Netherlands. He is the head of the Department of Rheumatology in the Alrijne hospitals and chairman of the scientific committee of the LUMC Department of Rheumatology, a EULAR Centre of Excellence. In the LUMC, he is the rheumatologist of the Leiden SPondyloArthritis Caught Early (SPACE) clinic.

He is a member of ASAS EC and the current ASAS treasurer.

Dr Sizheng Steven Zhao is an Academic Clinical Lecturer in rheumatology at the University of Manchester, UK. His PhD was on comorbidities in axial Spondyloarthritis, upon which he has built research interests in spondylarthritis using both traditional and genetic epidemiologic approaches. Steven has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is an associate editor of the journals Rheumatology and Clinical Therapeutics. He is also an executive committee member of the British Society for Spondyloarthritis and a member of ASAS.