Judith Safford trained as an economist (Dr. rer. pol) in Germany and has dedicated her professional life to excellence in non-profit management. Affected by spondyloarthritis and colitis since early adulthood, she is also a cancer survivor. Her special interest is the involvement of patients in healthcare, particularly through their participation in medical research. She is co-founder and President of the RheumaCura Foundation, which advocates for people-centred arthritis research. Furthermore, she is executive director of the SCQM foundation (Swiss national registry of inflammatory rheumatic diseases) and engages as a patient expert in research projects, including an SNSF funded project at the University Hospital of Zürich. She writes a blog at arthritisandme.ch. Exercise is essential to her health management, so she sneaks off to the Alps whenever time permits to tramp along a snowy mountain slope or scamper up a rock wall.