Ross E. Petty is a Canadian pediatric rheumatologist. He is a professor emeritus in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia and a pediatric rheumatologist at BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. He established Canada's first formal pediatric rheumatology program at the University of Manitoba in 1976, and three years later, he founded a similar program at the University of British Columbia.In 2006, he was appointed a member of the Order of Canada for his contribution within Canada and around the world to improving the lives of children and youth with rheumatic diseases. In 2012, he was awarded a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal. Petty has contributed more than 225 original research papers and book chapters in medical and scientific journals. Dr. Ronald Laxer is an active staff physician in the Division of Rheumatology, and was an inaugural Division Head at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. He is internationally recognized in the field of autoinflammatory disease and has been a part of genetic discoveries of several new autoinflammatory diseases. In addition to co-editing the Textbook of Pediatric Rheumatology, he is a co-editor of the Textbook of Autoinflammation. His recent achievements include receiving the American College of Rheumatology Master Designation Award from the American College of Rheumatology and the CRA Master Award from the Canadian Rheumatology Association. In 2020, he was appointed to the Covid-19 Government of Canada Task Force addressing gaps related to care for children. Lucy Wedderburn is Professor in Paediatric Rheumatology at UCL (Institute of Child Health), Director of Arthritis Research UK Centre for Adolescent Rheumatology at UCL, and UCL Hospitals/GOSH consultant. Her research interests are T cell immunology, immune regulation and muscle biology, with a major focus upon human T cell responses and immune regulation. In particular, the autoimmune conditions of childhood, including Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) and Juvenile Dermatomyositis (JDM); the mechanisms which allow survival and expansion of inflammatory T cells within the joint, the control of their production of cytokines and chemokines, and their contribution to disease. She trained in Cambridge and then London in Immunology and Rheumatology and then spent time training in science at the University of Stanford, USA, before returning to the University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital on a Wellcome Trust Fellowship. Dr. Elizabeth Mellins graduated from Cornell University with a degree in political science, did a post-bachelor year at MIT and received her MD from Harvard Medical School. She trained in Pediatrics at the University of Colorado and in Pediatric Rheumatology at the University of Washington. She began to focus on research in immunology and immunogenetics during her postdoctoral work at the University of Washington with Dr. Donald Pious. She had her first independent laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and then moved to Stanford, where she is now a professor of Pediatrics and a member of the Interdisciplinary Program in Immunology. She was a member of the Cellular and Molecular Immunology NIH study section for 9 years (2 terms) and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists. She was also a founder and first chairperson of the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance. Robert Fuhlbrigge is currently Professor and Section head for the division of Pediatric Rheumatology at the Children's Hospital Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. He earned his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine in 1989, completed his residency at Washington University/Barnes-Jewish Hospital/St. Louis Children's Hospital, and his fellowship in pediatric rheumatology at Children's Hospital (Boston). He is a member of the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology Research Alliance (Vice President) and the American College of Rheumatology. Most recently, he was given the Pediatric Rheumatology Visiting Professor Award, American College of Rheumatology Research and Education Foundation/Amgen, which is a teaching award in clinical pediatric rheumatology. Jonathan Akikusa is head of the Pediatric Rheumatology unit at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. His top areas of expertise are Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis JIA, Psoriatic Arthritis, Arthritis, and Adult Still's Disease. He has co-authored approximately 40 peer-reviewed articles. At.Cincinnati Children's, Dr. Brunner leads the Division of Rheumatology, where she and her team integrate clinical and translational research into daily care. Her research at Cincinnati Children's is focused on the development of clinical trial endpoints, surrogate measures and biomarkers as they pertain to pediatric rheumatic diseases, particularly lupus. She conducts clinical trials in pediatric rheumatic disease, drug development, and biomarker discovery for lupus nephritis and lupus that affects the brain. As part of her investigator-initiated research, she has successfully conducted several large multinational studies to develop flare, improvement, remission and inactive disease criteria for children with lupus. Dr. Brunner serves as the scientific director of the Pediatric Rheumatology Collaborative Study Group, where she works alongside researchers at more than 80 academic centers across the U.S. and Canada. Her personal affiliations include the Childhood Arthritis and Rheumatology and Research Alliance and the American College of Rheumatology. She has received the Castle Connolly Regional Top Doctor and Exceptional Women in Medicine awards (2017, 2018 and 2019), the Halsted R. Holman Award for Excellence in Clinical Research (2018), and the Above & Beyond Doctor of the Year award from the Aubrey Rose Foundation (2018).
