Desiree Van Der Heijde MD, PhD

Professor Désirée van der Heijde obtained her medical degree in 1986 from the Catholic University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. She completed her PhD and became a Board-Certified Rheumatology. Following a 1-year appointment in Sweden, she joined the Department of Rheumatology at the University Hospital Maastricht until 2007, when she took up her current position as Professor of Rheumatology at the Leiden University Medical Center. Since 2007, she has also been affiliated to the Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo, Norway.

Her major research interest is in the methodology of outcomes assessment and its application in clinical research. Specific areas of interest are radiographic scoring methods in Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriatic Arthritis, and Spondyloarthritis, as well as scoring of magnetic resonance imaging in Spondyloarthritis. She is involved as principal investigator or steering committee member in many clinical trials with biologics in Rheumatoid Arthritis, Psoriatic Arthritis, and Spondyloarthritis.

Professor van der Heijde was the Chairperson of the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS). She was the Chair of the EULAR Standing Committee for Clinical Affairs and is currently the ACR-EULAR liaison officer. She received the prestigious Carol Nachman Award for her scientific contributions to Rheumatology in a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Ghent in Belgium