Links to other EMEUNET Sub-Committee membership posts:
New EMEUNET Sub-Committee Members
Continuing EMEUNET Sub-Committee members
EMEUNET Chairmanship
Dr Diego Benavent (CHAIR)
Spain


Diego is currently working as a rheumatologist at Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge in Barcelona and as an assistant professor at the Universidad de Barcelona. Additionally, he collaborates as a Senior Medical Advisor at Savana, a company focused on artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine. Beyond his involvement in healthcare technology, particularly AI, his primary interests include spondyloarthritis, patient-reported outcomes, and musculoskeletal epidemiology.
Diego is the Chair of EMEUNET.
Dr Anastasia Madenidou (CHAIR-ELECT)
United Kingdom


Anastasia is a NIHR Manchester BRC Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Manchester and the Kellgren Centre, a Lupus UK Centre of Excellence, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
Her research focuses on multi-omics to identify novel treatment targets and advance precision medicine in lupus spectrum disorders.
She is an author of the Oxford Handbook of Rheumatology (5th edition) and a member of the EULAR Task Force for the Lupus Nephritis recommendations.
Anastasia is the chair-elect of EMEUNET
EMEUNET Subcommittee Chairs
Dr Christiana Siero Santos (Country Liaison SC Co-Chair)
Spain/UK


Cristiana is a rheumatologist and clinical researcher trained at the Complejo Asistencial Universitario de León (Spain), currently serving as a Clinical and Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, and at the Kellgren Centre for Rheumatology, Manchester Royal Infirmary (UK). She is pursuing her PhD at the University of León (Spain), focusing on vaccine immunogenicity in patients with immune-mediated rheumatic diseases. She also holds formal training in epidemiology from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon (Portugal).
Her research interests centre on connective tissue diseases, including systemic sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and reproductive health in rheumatic diseases.
She is actively involved in EUSTAR, SLEuro, and JOVREUM, and currently serves as a Social Media Editor for RMD Open and Associate Editor for Rheumatology (Oxford).
Cristiana is the Co-Chair of the EMEUNET Country Liaison Subcommittee and also serves as the Advisory Country Liaison for Spain, promoting international collaboration and peer mentorship among early-career rheumatologists.
Dr Alexandros Panagiotopoulos (Country Liaison SC Co-Chair)
Greece


Alex is an MSc and PhD fellow at Laiko Hospital, part of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where he is a rheumatology fellow at the First Department of Propaedeutic Internal Medicine. His PhD research focuses on the long-term outcomes of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), with a particular emphasis on lupus nephritis.
His clinical and research interests center on rheumatic patients with renal involvement, including the management of patients with systemic vasculitis and SLE, for which he gained the long-term EULAR scientific training grant for young fellows to take place at the Vasculitis and Lupus Service at Cambridge University.
Alex is also an active member of the Greek Society of Rheumatology and serves as Co-Chair of the EMEUNET Country Liaison Sub-Committee.
Dr Guillermo Carvajal Alegria (Education SC Chair)
France


Guillermo is a professor of rheumatology at the University of Tours and in the rheumatology department of the Tours University Hospital, France.
His research interest are polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) and giant cell arteritis, administration of biopharmaceuticals and ultrasonography and guided procedures. He participated in clinical and translational research on PMR. He spent one year in Groningen, The Netherlands, to work on biomarkers in PMR.
He is part of the board of directors of the French Rheumatology Society and of steering committee of the French College of Teaching Rheumatologists. He is leading a French national research group on the connections between rheumatology and the environment.
He is the chair of the EMEUNET Education Subcommittee.
Dr Victoria Konzett (Newsletter SC Chair)
Austria


Victoria is a clinical resident and PhD fellow at the Division of Rheumatology of the Medical University of Vienna, focusing on clinical and translational research in inflammatory rheumatic diseases, especially rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis (RA, PsA). She is currently completing her PhD in medical informatics and statistics, with the aim of applying tools of conventional statistics and modern data science to different fields of outcomes research and epidemiology in RA and PsA. In a translational research project, she also works on building a PsA at-risk cohort to forward understanding of factors and mechanisms that drive the transition from psoriasis to psoriatic arthritis.
Victoria is an active member of the young division working group of the Austrian Society of Rheumatology (JOEGR), and is the chair of the EMEUNET Newsletter Sub-Committee.
Dr Jelena Colic (Peer Mentoring SC Co-Chair)
Serbia


Jelena is an internal medicine specialist and trainee in rheumatology at the Institute of Rheumatology in Belgrade. She is a teaching assistant at the School of Medicine, University of Belgrade. In 2023, she defended her PhD thesis in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, focused on digital ulcers in systemic sclerosis.
Her primary interests include systemic sclerosis, endothelial dysfunction, haemostasis disturbance, microparticles, immunology and therapy strategies. Jelena is a member of the Serbian national rheumatology society (RAS), EUSTAR YIG member and PhD representative at the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Medicine University of Belgrade. She was several times Secretary of the organising committee and secretary of the Scientific Committee of the Annual Serbian Congress of Rheumatologists. She is a social media coordinator for both EUSTAR and RAS.
Jelena is the EMEUNET Country Liaison for Serbia and is the co-chair of the Peer-Mentoring Sub-Committee.
Dr Miranda van Lunteren (Social Media SC Co-Chair)
Netherlands


Miranda is a post-doctoral clinical researcher and clinical trial coordinator at Department of Rheumatology of the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden. In 2020 she obtained her PhD on the burden of early axial spondyloarthritis. Her major research interest is the early stages of axial spondyloarthritis, with a focus on observational studies, imaging and patient-reported outcomes. She has an interest in methodology and clinical trials. Since the start of her PhD, Miranda contributes to the SPACE and the DESIR cohort, both cohorts with patients in an early stage of axSpA. She is currently the study coordinator of the ASAS CLASSIC study, an international initiative to reevaluate the ASAS classification criteria for axSpA.
Miranda is an active member of the Y-ASAS Website Subgroup and the co-chair of the EMEUNET Social Media Sub-Committee.
Dr Jean Guillaume Letarouilly (Visibility & Global Affairs SC Chair)
France


Jean‑Guillaume is a rheumatologist and Associate Professor at the University of Lille and CHU de Lille, France. He holds a senior academic–clinical position combining patient care, research leadership, and medical education. His research interests include axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis, their crosstalk with inflammatory bowel diseases and psoriasis, difficult-to-treat axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis with inflammatory bowel diseases and psoriasis, the difficult-to-treat axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis and the role of fat in the inflammatory process.
Jean-Guillaume is the chair of the EMEUNET Visibility and Global Affairs Sub-Committee and an active member of the Young-GRAPPA (Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis), CRI-Imidiate research network and C3i (Club des Immunothérapies Innovantes).
Dr Mert Öztaş (Peer Mentoring SC Co-Chair)
Turkey


Mert is a consultant rheumatologist at Acibadem University Atakent Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey.
His major interests are vasculitis and connective tissue diseases.
He currently serves as a Co-Chair of the EMEUNET Peer-Mentoring Sub-Committee
Dr Tania Gudu (Social Media SC Co-Chair)
UK/Romania



Tania is a Rheumatology Consultant working at ESNEFT, in Ipswich, UK, where she is leading the Spondyloarthritis Service. She is also a Visiting Fellow at ESNEFT Research Unit for Behaviour, Health and Wellbeing, Department of Psychology, University of Essex, UK.
She has a special interest in spondyloarthritis, including axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis, with a focus on patient perspective/ patient reported outcomes, multidisciplinary working and service development. She is very passionate about patient education and psychology in rheumatic diseases.
She is a trustee/ member of the British Psoriatic Arthritis Consortium (BritPACT) Steering committee, a member of the British Society for Spondyloarthritis (BritSPA) and the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA).
Tania is the co-chair of the EMEUNET Social Media Subcommittee.