R.W. (Ruud) Selles, PhD

My research aims to develop better ways to treat upper-extremity disorders by using innovative approaches focused on real-world data collection and analysis.

Over the last few years, I have developed different research approaches by collecting large-scale clinical data and analyzing it using innovative statistical and data science techniques. Central to this is the Hand Wrist Study Cohort, a routine outcome measurement system for hand surgery and rehabilitation that has grown into one of the world's largest and most detailed datasets of its kind, now including over 300,000 treatments and more than 100 different treatment types. This dataset has been mapped to the OMOP Common Data Model ("Extreme FAIRification"), making it available for federated network analysis. Similarly, I co-initiated the Rijndam Zorgdata project for systematic routine outcome measurement in stroke rehabilitation, which reached 100,000 completed questionnaires and forms in 2026.

My work encompasses comparative effectiveness studies using real-world clinical data, the development of clinical prediction models for individual treatment response, and real-time prediction modeling. I currently lead work packages in the national Contrast consortium and the EU IHI Umbrella project, and I lead the EU Horizon PREPARE project on personalized rehabilitation via AI-based patient stratification.

Rehabilitation medicine, hand surgery, stroke recovery and interventions, human movement science, data science, comparative effectiveness research, clinical prediction modeling, routine outcome measurement, value-based healthcare.

I obtained my MSc in Human Movement Science from the VU University Amsterdam and my PhD in Rehabilitation Medicine from the Erasmus University Rotterdam (2002). After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (now Shirley Ryan AbilityLab) and Northwestern University, I held positions as senior researcher and assistant professor before becoming Associate Professor (2014) and Full Professor (2021) at the Departments of Rehabilitation Medicine and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and Hand Surgery at Erasmus MC.

I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and have been awarded grants from numerous national and international agencies, including NWO, ZonMW, EU Horizon, NIH, and the Dutch Brain Foundation. I have supervised more than 25 completed PhD theses and currently supervise more than 15 ongoing PhD candidates.

For an up-to-date list of peer-reviewed publications, please visit https://pure.eur.nl/en/persons/ruud-w-selles/. For reprints, please contact me via my ResearchGate profile at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ruud-Selles.

I am actively involved in teaching within both the Medicine and Clinical Technology programs. I co-developed the minor in Plastic Surgery (From Heads to Hands, 2010). Since 2012, I have been block coordinator for Academic Skills (Lijnonderwijs Academische Vorming) in the joint BSc program Clinical Technology (Erasmus MC, TU Delft, LUMC), which I co-developed from its inception. Since 2023, I am a member of the advisory board of the Research Master Clinical Research of the Netherlands Institute for Health Sciences (NIHES).

Throughout my career, I have been actively involved in teaching research methods and evidence-based medicine to health care professionals in various postdoctoral programs.

Member of the Board of Directors (Raad van Toezicht), Nederlands Paramedisch Instituut (www.npi.nl), 2018–present — the largest provider of post-graduation courses for physical therapists in the Netherlands.

Member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Stichting Dupuytren Nederland, 2020–present.

Member of the Scientific Advisory Board, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Rehabilitation Research, Austria, 2024–present.