Speakers

Dr Terence McSweeney is a researcher and experienced educator passionate about studying the spine and musculoskeletal pain.

His recent work combines deep learning, radiomics, and statistical modelling of imaging data to characterise spine degeneration trajectories for phenotyping and stratification. He qualified from the University of Westminster, London as an osteopath in 2011 and completed an MSc in the clinical management of pain at the University of Edinburgh in 2014. He went on to work as a full-time lecturer at Swansea University, teaching allied healthcare professionals and gaining his PGCert and FHEA. He completed his PhD at the University of Oulu, Finland in 2026, and was an Ireland-USA Fulbright awardee to UCSF in 2024.

He is currently an Assistant Professor in Anatomy at the University of Limerick School of Medicine and is a member of ISSLS and the European Spine Journal AI Task Force. 

Jarkko Halme is a board-certified, fellowship-trained orthopedic spine surgeon with nearly 20 years of experience in spine surgery. Following an appointment at University Hospital Basel, Switzerland, he completed advanced fellowships at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli in Bologna, Italy, and the Presbyterian Och Spine Hospital in New York. 
 
He currently practices at the Spine Center of Kuopio University Hospital, Finland, where he is also responsible for spine surgery fellowship training. He serves as a permanent member of the Finnish Patient Injury Board and is a longstanding member of the FinSpine National Quality Registry Task Force. 
 
Dr. Halme has served in different positions in the Finnish Spine Surgery Society over the past decade. Internationally, he serves on the Eurospine Board and chairs the European Spine Societies Advisory Board. He is also a past President of the Nordic Spinal Deformities Society. 

Jeroen Huybregts graduated in medicine from Leiden University. During his studies, he started as a student researcher at the University Neurosurgical Center Holland (UNCH) Leiden–The Hague. He completed his neurosurgical residency at the UNCH hospitals in 2023, combining clinical training with research. 

His work on the treatment of odontoid fractures in the elderly led to several national and international studies and a PhD thesis, defended in November 2025.The multicenter prospective international study at the heart of the thesis received four awards: the EUROSPINE/EuSSAB Best National Spine Society Paper Award (2025), the Dutch Spine Society Award (2024), the EANS Best Abstract Award (2024), and the 3rd Best Abstract at CSRS-US (2024). 

Today, Jeroen is a consultant neurosurgeon at LUMC and Alrijne Hospital, specializing in general neurosurgery and in complex and endoscopic spine surgery. He serves on the board of the Dutch Spine Society. 

Teija Lund, MD, PhD, Adjunct Professor, is a Finnish spine surgeon and clinical researcher with more than three decades of experience in orthopaedics and spine surgery. She serves as Senior Consultant in Spine Surgery at Helsinki University Hospital, Senior Researcher at the Finnish Centre for Evidence-Based Orthopaedics (FICEBO), and Clinical Researcher at Helsinki University. 

Dr Lund’s research focuses on lumbar disc degeneration, low back pain, spinal biomechanics, and the developmental origins of spine disorders. The longitudinal MRI study investigating lumbar spine development from childhood to adulthood has contributed important evidence on the relationship between pubertal growth, disc degeneration, and future low back pain. 

In addition to her research activities, Dr Lund has international experience in spine surgery and research through organizations such as ISSLS, EUROSPINE, and AOSpine. Her scientific awards include the ISSLS Prize in Clinical Science 2022 and the EUROSPINE Best Podium Presentation Award 2025. 

Mr Sudarshan Munigangaiah FRCS (Tr & Orth) is a Consultant Spinal Surgeon specialising in both adult and paediatric spinal disorders. Born and raised in Bangalore, India, he completed his medical studies from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Bangalore. 
 
He completed his basic surgical and higher specialist training in Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery in the Republic of Ireland, followed by advanced spinal fellowships at Galway University Hospitals, Ireland, and at The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, Oswestry, and Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, two leading tertiary spinal centres in the UK. 
 
Appointed as a Consultant in 2016, his clinical practice includes spinal deformity, degenerative conditions, tumours, trauma, and infections. He is currently the Fellowship Director at both RJAH and Alder Hey and serves on the Executive Board of the British Scoliosis Society.