Ariane Herrick is Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Manchester: Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust: Consultant Rheumatologist, NHS Grampian: Honorary Clinical Professor at the University of Aberdeen. Her main clinical and research interests are Raynaud's phenomenon, systemic sclerosis-spectrum disorders, and assessment of the microvasculature (including nailfold capillaroscopy).
Andrea Murray is Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester, Centre for Musculoskeletal Research, the Photon Science Institute and the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre. She is a physicist with a major interest in light-tissue interaction. She has a longstanding interest in nailfold capillaroscopy.
Chris Taylor is Professor of Medical Biophysics and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. His core research is in computer vision and medical image analysis. He has a well-established interest in nailfold capillaroscopy, with a particular focus on quantitative and automated analysis. He has a long history of involvement in technology transfer.
Vanessa Smith is Head of Clinics at the Ghent University Hospital since 2011 and Full Professor of Rheumatology at the Ghent University Professor Smith is steering committee and founding member of the European Commission Reference Network on Rare CONnective tissue and complex musculoskeletal diseases NETwork (ERN- ReCONNET) since 2016 and executive board member of ERN- ReCONNET as coordinator of systemic sclerosis since 2017. She serves as Belgian national expert contact point for Health Authorities and is the chair of the Flemish network for rare connective tissue diseases. Professor Smith currently holds a position as Senior Clinical Investigator of the Research Foundation - Flanders, and is the chair of the EULAR study group on Microcirculation in Rheumatic diseases. She is an organizing/scientific board member of the 2nd up the 14
th EULAR courses on capillaroscopy and chairs the EULAR network of training and research, Ghent center for microcirculatory imaging. Since 2020 Prof. Smith is member of the scientific organizing committee of the Systemic Sclerosis World Congresses as well. At the same time, Professor Smith is co-editor of several books, as well as co-author of book chapters and several manuscripts on SSc/microcirculation (more than 350 publications with a disease specific H-index of 60).
Maurizio Cutolo is Professor of Rheumatology and Internal Medicine, Director of the Laboratories of Experimental Rheumatology and Senior Consultant of the Academic Division of Clinical Rheumatology, University of Genova, Italy. MC is former President of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) and Chairman of the International League of Associations for Rheumatology (ILAR). MC is Chairman of the Scientific Commission of the Italian Society for Rheumatology (SIR), Advisor of the EULAR School of Rheumatology Education Committee (EsOR) and International Adviser of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). MC was awarded ACR Master (MACR) and EULAR Meritory Service in Rheumatology. MC serves as Deputy-Chair of the European Commission network on Rare and Complex Connective Tissue Disease (ReCONNET-ERN) and is chair of the ERN ReCONNET WG on Education & Training. MC is author-coauthor of more than 800 publications (PUB MED) and his H index is 104 (Scopus) and 129 (Google Scholar).
