Paola Bovolenta is a Research Professor and Chair of the Program “Homeostasis of Tissue and Organs” at the Center for Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa, CSIC-UAM, Madrid, Spain. She obtained her Ph.D. degree at the New York University, School of Medicine, NY, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University, Center for Neurobiology and Behaviour, NY. She then moved to the Instituto Cajal, CSIC, Madrid, and then to the Center for Molecular Biology Severo Ochoa, where she is currently working. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Biotechnology Department (DIBIT) of the Fondazione San Raffaele in Milan and in the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. She served as Head and Deputy Head of the Biology and Biomedicine Area of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), Adjoined Manager for Molecular Biology at the National Evaluation Agency (ANEP). She was a member of the Communication/Publication Committee of FENS, of the International Affairs Committee of the Society for Neuroscience, and of the Telethon Scientific Board. She currently serves in the Scientific Council of the European Scientific Council (ERC) and in the Scientific Advisory Board of the ERA-NET NEURON Program. She is a member of the SAB of different European research centers and serves as editor or board member of different journals. She is a member of EMBO. Her research interests focus on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the development of Alzheimer’s disease as well as those related to the early development of the nervous system with particular emphasis on those processes that may lead to congenital defects and neurodegenerative diseases.