After finishing the medical studies, Mauricio L. Barreto completed a Master in Public Health, both at Federal University of Bahia(UFBa), Salvador, Brazil. For few years he worked as a Public Health doctor and late headed the Health Information Center at the Department of Health, State of Bahia, Brazil. In 1987, he was awarded a Ph.D. in Public Health and Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM-UK). His academic career started at the Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine-UFBa. In 1995, Mauricio was one of the founders and first Deputy Director of the Institute of Collective Health(ISC) at UFBa, that soon become a leading Brazilian academic institution in health research and training. In ISC, as a full Professor of Collective Health Epidemiology, he leads a large and active research group studying poverty-related infections and infectious diseases, allergy and asthma, the environmental and social determinants of health, health inequalities, and the evaluation of the impact of population-based health and social interventions on health. This broad interest is a central characteristic of his work, which has been conducted jointly with a large network of collaborators from different disciplines, reflecting the interdisciplinary perspective of his research program. Prof. Barreto has been the PI or co-PI of several large research projects. Today, among others he leads the “100 million Brazilians cohort” aimed to evaluate the impact of social protections programs on health using linkage of large administrative databases. In 2014, he moved to the Instituto Gonçalo Muniz- Fundação Oswaldo Cruz(FIOCRUZ), as a Senior Investigator, to lead the setup of the Center for Data and Knowledge Integration for Health-CIDCS. FIOCRUZ is the part of the Brazilian MoH dedicated to health research and training. While his works have a great focus on Brazil, he has been PI or co-PI in several international research initiatives, and for six years was the International Epidemiological Association Latin America Councilor for Latin America and the Caribbean. He also has acted in committees and working groups in health, health research and health research ethics, from Brazilian and International organizations. He has been a member of Editorial Boards of several national and international scientific journals and for three years he was the Editor-in-Chief of the “Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health” (BMJ group). He was a leader organizer of the Lancet Series on Brazil, published in 2011. He has published over 370 peer reviewed papers and has supervised 22 successful  PhDs students. He is an elected fellow of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences(ABC) and the World Academy of Sciences(TWAS) and an Honorary Professor at the LSHTM-UK.