Eric Fombonne (Researcher, McGill University Health Center) 

Eric Fombonne, M.D., is the Head of the Division of Child Psychiatry at McGill and Director of the Department of Psychiatry at the Montreal Children’s Hospital where he has expanded autism services. He worked at INSERM in France and in the UK at the London Institute of Psychiatry, and he now is holder of a Canada Research Chair. He has been involved in numerous epidemiological studies of autism and is considered to be a leading authority on this topic, and also on the putative links between autism and immunization. He has also been involved in the development of assessment tools for clinical and research purposes, in family and genetic studies of autism, and in outcome studies. He has a long track record of scientific/research leadership including serving as a consultant for the National Academy of Sciences, the Center for Diseases Control, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the MRC (UK), the MIND Institute (U.C. Davis) on research matters related to autism. He has been Associate Editor of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders since 1994 and is on the editorial board of several other scientific journals. He is on the board of several family associations with which he has worked closely over the years.