Heloisa Bettiol is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Brazil, since 1988. She holds a PhD degree in Pediatrics at the same University in 1995. In 1997/1998 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College, London, UK. Her main research areas are related to human growth, perinatal epidemiology, infant mortality and the developmental origins of health and disease. She has been involved since 1983 in birth cohort studies conducted in Ribeirão Preto and São Luís, Brazil, which has been investigating the determinants and consequences throughout the life cycle of low birth weight, preterm birth and intrauterine growth restriction. Heloisa has been a principal investigator in the follow-up studies of the Ribeirão Preto birth cohorts of 1978/79, 1994 and 2010, addressing topics related to precursors of chronic adult diseases, body composition and obesity, human capital and mental health. She is the coordinator of the next follow-up of the 2010 birth cohort, which will be carried out from 2021, in a research consortium involving the Brazilian birth cohorts from Ribeirão Preto, Pelotas and São Luís (RPS Consortium).