Prof.  Dr. Leila Harhaus is the chair of the FESSH Research Committee. She is the director of the Department of Hand-, Replantation- and Microsurgery at BG Klinikum Unfallkrankenhaus Berlin and Chair of Hand-, Replantation- and Microsurgery at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin.  She studied medicine in Mainz and Freiburg and started her residency at the Department for Trauma Surgery, Orthopedics and Plastic Surgery at University Hospital Göttingen, Germany. After three years, she moved to BG Trauma Center Ludwigshafen, where she obtained her board qualification for plastic surgery and two years later for hand surgery. She passed the EBHS Exam in 2019 as “best candidate” and also completed her studies of health economics. During her one-year microsurgical fellowship at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taipei, Taiwan, she began her intensive work in the field of peripheral nerve surgery, which she has since than continued as her clinical and scientific focus. She is leading a large research group working on almost all topics of hand surgery. As a member of numerous societies, she is involved in committee work, leads the guideline work and translational research topics.