Madelon Vonk is an Associate Professor who works at the Rheumatic Diseases Department at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, a EULAR Center of Excellence and an NFU-recognized expertise center for systemic autoimmune diseases and pulmonary hypertension. Dr Vonk graduated as a medical doctor in 1994 and as a rheumatologist in 2004, and she completed her PhD entitled ‘Systemic sclerosis, assessment and treatment. Tight control in a tight disease’ in 2008 at the Radboud University Nijmegen. During her PhD, she started the prospective Nijmegen Scleroderma cohort and is leader of clinical research in systemic sclerosis and pulmonary hypertension at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center. Dr Vonk combines patient care with both education and clinical research. The focus of her research is early diagnosis of systemic sclerosis and its complications, as well as early treatment.