Alexandra Villa-Forte, MD, is a Staff Physician in the Center for Vasculitis Care and Research. She is board-certified in internal medicine and rheumatology and has a master's degree in public health. Her main interest and professional role is the diagnosis and treatment of vasculitis.

My early work with outstanding mentors, who were pediatric rheumatologists, led me to pursue my clinical and research interests. During my fellowship, the unfortunate death of a patient from macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) prompted me to further study this life-threatening complication of systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis. 

Currently, I focus on identifying risk factors and new therapeutic targets in MAS. Our transnational studies have identified interferon gamma (INF), a dimerized soluble cytokine, as a therapeutic target in patients suffering from MAS. This discovery provided the rationale for a new clinical trial that is currently underway.

My research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Systemic Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (SJIA) Foundation. I have also received research grants from Sobi, Novartis and AB2Bio.

I am Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania and Deputy Director of the Penn Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. My research program is focused psoriatic arthritis (PsA), an inflammatory arthritis with potentially devastating outcomes that affects around 30% of patients with psoriasis. The mission of my research program is to improve outcomes in PsA through patient-centered research aiming to develop personalized medicine strategies for PsA (including adjunct therapies as proposed here), identify appropriate outcome measures for PsA, and improve early identification of the disease. 

I am an expert in the care of patients with PsA and founder and Director of the Penn Psoriatic Arthritis and Spondyloarthritis Program. My areas of expertise include epidemiology and pharmacoepidemiology, biostatistical methods for observational studies (e.g., complex time to event modeling, prediction modeling), outcome measures (e.g., qualitative and quantitative/psychometric assessment), and more general qualitative methods (e.g., survey, focus group and interview studies). Much of my recent work has been aimed at the design and conduct of randomized controlled trials in PsA with a particular interest in initiating pragmatic trials in PsA.

Alicia Hinze, M.D., M.H.S., is a rheumatologist with a specialty interest in scleroderma and myositis. Her clinical focus includes the diagnosis and management of:

• Systemic sclerosis (scleroderma), both diffuse and limited subtypes, and its multisystem complications.
• Inflammatory myopathies (dermatomyositis, anti-synthetase syndrome, myositis overlapping with other autoimmune diseases, HMGCR necrotizing myopathy)
• Interstitial lung disease associated with systemic autoimmune conditions
• Raynaud's phenomenon
• Systemic lupus erythematosus

 She has a clinical passion to educate patients about their disease and available options for management, and to work with them to develop a personalized treatment plan. In addition to her clinical activities, she is active in clinical research. She is developing the Mayo Clinic Scleroderma Registry to collect clinical information from patients who chose to participate, to help physicians and researchers better understand the disease process, best monitoring strategies and optimal treatment approaches. Her research focus is on developing methods to improve monitoring of disease activity and response to therapy in order to provide the best care possible to her patients.

Amanda Alexander, MD, is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Rheumatology Fellowship Training Program in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her interests are medical education, musculoskeletal ultrasound, scleroderma, and advocacy.

Dr. Amanda Ombrello received her medical degree from Saint Louis University in Missouri in 2003, subsequently going forth to subspecialize in both adult and pediatric rheumatologist training at Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center and Saint Louis University. In 2010, she and her husband moved to Bethesda, Maryland in pursuit of gaining research experience. Having aligned herself with Dr. Dan Kastner from Day 1 at the National Institutes of Health, she has focused her research on the field of autoinflammation. Leading the Inflammatory Disease Section's clinical team, she oversees the care of greater than 2000 patients with novel and established autoinflammatory diseases. Additionally, Dr. Ombrello has played a significant role in the discovery and characterization of 6 new autoinflammatory diseases as well as doggedly pursuing effective therapeutic options for these patients. She has spear-headed the organization of a multi-specialty juggernaut that is fighting to decipher the complex and potentially devastating disease, deficiency of adenosine deaminase 2. Dr. Ombrello has become increasingly recognized as a leader in the field of autoinflammation and has been asked to present her work at national and international meetings.

Dr. Cannella is on faculty at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She is passionate about student, resident and fellow education in clinical medicine and rheumatologic ultrasound.  She has been the Rheumatology Fellowship Program Director since its inception in 2005.  She is a mentor and board member of USSONAR.

Andrea Ramirez Gomez is a rheumatologist at the University of Chicago. She provides care to patients with a variety of rheumatologic conditions. She has clinical interests in vasculitis and musculoskeletal ultrasound and is passionate about medical education. She currently runs an ultrasound clinic where she also teaches trainees the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.