Links to other EMEUNET Sub-Committee membership posts:
Continuing EMEUNET Sub-Committee members
Farewell to EMEUNET Sub-Committee members
Dr Jennifer Amsler
Switzerland
Jennifer is a rheumatologist and senior physician at the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, University Hospital Bern and a PhD fellow at the Graduate Health School (GHS) at the University of Bern.
She has spent two years as a postdoc in an immunology laboratory at Institut Cochin in Paris, France, working on neutrophils in rheumatoid arthritis and ANCA-associated vasculitis. Her PhD topic involves translational research in vasculitis.
Her clinical focus lies on maternity and fertility in inflammatory rheumatic diseases, where she helps to build the Swiss RePreg cohort.
Jennifer is a student representative of the GHS in Bern and a member of the EMEUNET Country Liaison Sub-Committee.
Dr Alessandra Bettiol
Italy
Alessandra is Assistant Professor of Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Florence.
Her research interests focus mainly on translational research in rare systemic vasculitis, especially Behçet’s syndrome (BS) and ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAVs).
She is also interested in biostatistics, epidemiology and guideline development. She is Convenor of the Study group on Epidemiology of the International Society for Behçet’s disease (ISBD), and is a member of the panel for the 2025 update of EULAR recommendations for BS.
Alessandra is a new member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.
Dr Emanuele Bozzalla Cassione
Italy
Emanuele is a consultant rheumatologist and physician-researcher at the Division of Rheumatology, Careggi University Hospital, Florence.
He is the president-elect of the SIRyoung (young committee of the Italian Society of Rheumatology) and has been serving as Country Liaison for Italy and San Marino in the past three years.
His main research focus is on clinical and translational research in inflammatory arthropathies, especially rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis (RA, PsA, along with interstitial lung disease.
Emanuele is a member of the EMEUNET Visibility & Global Affairs Sub-Committee.
Dr Hannah den Braanker
Netherlands
Hannah is a rheumatologist in training at Maasstadt Hospital with a strong background in translational research. She holds a PhD and Master’s degree in molecular medicine, with her doctoral research focused on the transition from psoriasis to psoriatic arthritis, investigating T cells, lymphatics, and their interplay in disease progression. Her main research interests encompass basic/translational science and psoriatic arthritis.
Currently, Hannah works on projects exploring the relationship between obesity, lymphatics, and inflammatory arthritis, contributing to understanding how metabolic factors influence rheumatic disease development. Her work bridges immunological research with clinical applications, translating basic science discoveries into improved patient care.
Hannah is an active member of Young GRAPPA and a new member of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.
Dr Andreu Fernández-Codina
Spain, Canada
Andreu is a clinical and postdoctoral research fellow at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain. He is also an Assistant Professor at the Rheumatology Division, Western University, Canada. His PhD thesis was centred on IgG4-related disease.
His research interests are clinical trials, epidemiological research and translational research in vasculitis, IgG4-related disease and systemic sclerosis. He is currently working on a new fast-track GCA clinic in Barcelona and investigating new antibody technologies in scleroderma in collaboration with Western University (Canada) and the National Institutes for Health (USA). He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts, with an H-index of 20.
He has been a member of the ACR/EULAR classification criteria task force. He is the co-founder of the Spanish IgG4-RD registry. He is a member of the Scleroderma Clinical Trials Consortium, CANVASC and ACR.
He is a new member of the Peer Mentoring EMEUNET Sub-Committee.
Dr Alvaro Gomez
Chile, Sweden
Álvaro is a physician researcher and postdoctoral fellow at the Clinical Epidemiology Division, Karolinska Institutet, focusing on systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases, particularly systemic lupus erythematosus. His research examines how biological, social, economic, and psychological factors influence long-term outcomes, including somatic and mental health comorbidities.
Álvaro uses national Swedish registers, clinical cohorts, randomised controlled trials, survey-based studies, and systematic reviews to study prognosis and treatment outcomes. This includes work on B-cell–targeting biologics and the impact of (non-)pharmacological interventions on patient-reported outcomes in lupus.
Álvaro is part of the Junior Faculty steering group at the Clinical Epidemiology Division at KI, and a member of the EMEUNET Country Liaison Sub-Committee
Dr Elvis Hysa
Italy, Albania
Elvis is a rheumatologist and PhD Candidate at the Laboratory of Experimental Rheumatology and Academic Division of Clinical Rheumatology, University of Genova, Italy.
His research focuses primarily on clinical and translational studies in polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis, imaging aspects of systemic sclerosis and other autoimmune connective tissue diseases (particularly capillaroscopy and skin ultrasound), and rheumatic-immune-related adverse events in oncology patients following immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.
His PhD research centres on characterising cultured macrophages derived from peripheral circulating monocytes in patients with polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis, both before and after treatment.
Elvis is a member of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.
Dr Margarida Lucas Rocha
Portugal
Margarida is a physician currently completing her Rheumatology training at the Unidade Local de Saúde do Algarve, Faro, Portugal. She has broadened her clinical experience through short-term internships at the Lupus and Vasculitis Service at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and within the Rheumatology Department at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
She is an enthusiastic researcher with a particular interest in Vasculitis and Systemic Sclerosis.
Since 2021, she has served as an invited referee for ARP Rheumatology and has been the facilitator for the EMEUNET Peer review Programme Facilitator & First Review since 2025.
Margarida is also an active member of the EUSTAR Young Investigators Group and a member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.
Dr Maxime Melchior
Belgium
Maxime is a PhD fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles Centre for Research in Immunology (U-CRI), where he conducts fundamental and translational research on spondyloarthritis and associated diseases. His research aims to decipher the role of genetic risk factors in shaping T cell dysfunction in these conditions.
Maxime is the co-chair of the Belgian Society of Rheumatology’s Young Rheumatologists Working Group (NextGen Academy – SRBR/KBVR) and a member of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.
Dr Clara Mistegaard
Denmark
Clara is a medical doctor and researcher at the Department of Rheumatology at Odense University Hospital, specialising in clinical and translational research on inflammatory rheumatic diseases, with a particular focus on axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA). She holds a PhD centred on the role of the complement system in axSpA.
She is an active member of the Danish Society of Rheumatology, where she contributes to the development of national clinical guidelines for the management of axSpA and the medical treatment of rheumatoid diseases.
Clara is involved in the EMEUNET Social Media Subcommittee and is also a member of Y-GRAPPA.
Dr Cécile Philippoteaux
France
Cécile is a physician and clinical fellow in the Rheumatology Department at Lille University Hospital, France. Her clinical and research interests primarily focus on bone diseases, including secondary osteoporosis, rare and constitutional bone disorders, and the use of real-world data for outcomes research. She is currently pursuing a PhD in medical informatics and epidemiology. Her work leverages the French nationwide health claims database to study pharmaco-epidemiological and prognostic aspects of bone diseases, such as drug-induced osteoporosis, fracture risk prediction, and comorbidity profiles in rare skeletal disorders.
Cécile is an active member of the young division working group of the French Society of Rheumatology (SFR) and a new member of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.
Dr Myriam Reisch
Austria
Myriam is a physician researcher at the Medical University of Graz, where she is involved in clinical and translational research with a focus on ANCA-associated vasculitis and large vessel vasculitis. She is currently pursuing a PhD project investigating the pathogenesis of giant cell arteritis.
She is an active member of the young division working group (JOEGR) and of the visibility working group of the Austrian Society of Rheumatology. She is also a member of the EMEUNET Visibility & Global Affairs Sub-Committee
Dr Marc Scherlinger
France
Marc is a rheumatologist and translational researcher committed to advancing the understanding of autoimmune disease pathogenesis, particularly systemic lupus. His work also focuses on translational and clinical research into intensive immunotherapies, including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and T-cell engagers, in the context of autoimmune disorders.
He is a member of the French Society of Rheumatology and serves as vice-president of the Club for Innovating Immunotherapies in IMIDs (C3I).
Additionally, Marc acts as the country liaison for France within EMEUNET and contributes to its Country Liaison Sub-Committee.
Dr Agata I. Schramm-Luc
Poland
Agata is an internist and rheumatologist. She is a lecturer (research/teaching) in the Department of Internal and Rural Medicine of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, where she earned a PhD in medicine for research entitled “T cell proinflammatory cytokine production and clinical manifestations of inflammatory diseases.”
In her work, she combines clinical practice at the Rheumatology Outpatient Clinics with research in the Translational Medicine Laboratory. Her main scientific interest is the role of the immune system in hypertension in rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory spondyloarthropathies.
Agata is an active member of the Young Rheumatologists’ Sub-Committee of Polish Society of Rheumatology, a member of the Polish Society of Internal Medicine and a member of the EMEUNET Peer-Mentoring Sub-Committee.
Dr Gagandeep Sukhija
United Kingdom/India
Gagandeep is a Rheumatology Trainee in London, UK, currently working at St George’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He holds postgraduate degrees in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology and has an academic background from both India and the UK. His clinical interests include SLE, systemic vasculitis, Myositis & ILD in rheumatology and global disparities in rheumatology care.
He has a strong interest in education and quality improvement. Gagandeep is also the current South London Rheumatology Trainee representative. He is passionate about global health equity and community engagement.
He is a member of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.
Dr Alessandro Tomelleri
Italy
Alessandro is a consultant rheumatologist at San Raffaele Hospital and adjunct professor at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. His research focuses on polymyalgia rheumatica, large vessel vasculitis, autoinflammatory diseases, and VEXAS syndrome. He is part of the ACR-EULAR classification criteria committee for VEXAS syndrome. He is involved in an OMERACT project to define an ultrasound-based monitoring score in Takayasu arteritis. In giant cell arteritis, he has contributed to several national and international studies and has led a translational project on the role of IL-6R polymorphisms as predictors of treatment response.
Alessandro is actively engaged in international collaborations through OMERACT and the GCA-PMR study group, and is currently a member of the EMEUNET Visibility & Global Affairs Sub-Committee.
Dr Nikolaos Vlachogiannis
Greece
Nikos is a postdoctoral researcher in Rheumatology and Internal Medicine resident at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His main clinical and research interests include systemic sclerosis, and specifically the pathogenetic mechanisms connecting vasculopathy / innate immunity with fibrosis.
Nikos is the EMEUNET country liaison for Greece and a new member of the social media Sub-Committee.