Simo Saarakkala has a Ph.D. degree in Medical Physics and he is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oulu, Finland. He also serves as a Scientific Director of the Infotech Oulu Focus Institute, University of Oulu. Prof. Saarakkala has published over 140 peer-reviewed scientific articles on different aspects of musculoskeletal imaging and biomechanics, particularly focusing on osteoarthritis. He is an active member of OARSI (Osteoarthritis Research Society International) and is currently serving in OARSI program committee for 2019-2021. Prof. Saarakkala is an internationally recognized researcher in the field of osteoarthritis imaging and diagnostics. His research focuses ondiagnostics and imaging of osteoarthritis at different levels, i.e. from tissue and cell level up to the clinical level. The primary goal in his research is to better understand the etiology and progression of osteoarthritis, as well as to develop novel methodologies to diagnose the disease at early phase and predict its clinical progression, when there would still be treatment options for patients.Recently, he has actively investigated the potential of advanced machine learning and deep learning methodology for these purposes.