Professor Gerry Wilson graduated in Medicine from Queen's University Belfast in 1983. He was awarded an ARC Clinical Fellowship for a PhD thesis which he undertook at the University of Sheffield and successfully completed in 1995. He was subsequently awarded an ARC Copeman Fellowship for research at Stanford University. He was appointed Professor in Rheumatology and Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist at the University of Sheffield Medical School and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where he was Head of the Sheffield EULAR Centre of Excellence for Rheumatology.

Prof Wilson was appointed to the Arthritis Ireland/UCD Chair of Rheumatology in 2013. He joins Ireland's leading rheumatology group comprising seven existing consultant rheumatologists based Mater Misericordiae University Hospital and St Vincent's University Hospital.