Prof Alonso obtained master degrees in Mathematics and Biostatistics from the universities of Havana (Cuba) and Hasselt (Belgium) in 1997 and 1999, respectively. In 2004, he received his Phd degree in Biostatistics from Hasselt University in Belgium. Prof Alonso has worked as a consultant at the National Coordination Center for Clinical Trials in Cuba, as Assistant Professor at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands and as Associate Professor at the KU Leuven in Belgium. He has published methodological research on the validation of surrogate markers, the assessment of rating scales and inference under misspecification in hierarchical models.