Maria Melchior holds a PhD (Harvard University) and is accredited to supervise research (UVSQ). She is Director of Research at Inserm. Her work focuses on social inequalities in mental health and addictive behaviours, with a particular interest in developmental trajectories from childhood to adulthood and intergenerational transmission.

Her research is mainly based on data from longitudinal cohorts conducted in France (EDEN, ELFE, TEMPO) or in other countries (ELDEQ in Canada, DNBC in Denmark). She received the Research Prize from the European Psychiatric Association (2012), the Early Career Award from
the International Society of Behavioural Medicine (2004) and the MILDECA Addiction Research Prize (2018).

She is the author or co-author of more than 180 original articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Her projects are funded by the ANR, the Addiction Fund, the EU (H2020) and the ERC (Consolidator 2021-2025).