Lara Maxwell recently joined OMERACT as the Methodological Advisor to the Technical Advisory Group. She is based at the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Canada. Since 2004 she has been involved with Cochrane and OMERACT. As Managing Editor of Cochrane Musculoskeletal, she conducts and facilitates the production of systematic reviews on a wide range of interventions for rheumatological conditions. She is involved in the multiple intervention methods initiative and Equity Methods Group within Cochrane. In addition to systematic review methodology, her research interests include developing knowledge translation strategies for the dissemination of results of systematic reviews, including the development of patient decision aids, criteria around when to replicate systematic reviews, and the assessment of measurement properties of pain scales. She received a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Split, Croatia and an MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa.