Previous professor of Rheumatology at the University of Oslo from 1997 to the end of 2019 and was head of the Department of Rheumatology at Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway, from 1994 to 2019. He is now professor emeritus and part time senior research advisor at Diakonhjemmet Hospital.

Josef Smolen is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. He received his MD degree from the University of Vienna, trained there in Immunology, Medicine and Rheumatology and was research fellow at the Arthritis Institute at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. 1989-2017 he was Chairman of 2nd Department of Medicine at Hietzing Hospital and 1995-2018 Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Division of Rheumatology at Medical University of Vienna, where he also acted as Chairman of the Department of Medicine 3 2007-2018.

Senior consultant at Dept of Rheumatology, St Olavs Hospital and professor at Institute of Neuromedicine and Movement Science (INB), NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), and with a special interest in pregnancy and rheumatic diseases.

Consultant doctor of rheumatology og professor at the Department of clinical medicine, University of Bergen(MD, PhD).