Anna-Maija Tolppanen is Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology and real-world data analytics at the University of Eastern Finland. She has 20 years’ research experience in different fields of epidemiology, including PhD in genetic epidemiology. Her research group https://uefconnect.uef.fi/en/group/real-world-evidence-team/ develops approaches for better utilisation of real-world data in close collaboration with different stakeholders. She is a valued partner in multi-country studies, as exemplified by work package leadership in the Horizon project Real4Reg coordinated by the German Medicines Agency, post-authorisation safety studies within the Sigma consortium providing trusted real-world evidence through a European federated professional excellence network and the European Pharmacoepidemiology & Pharmacovigilance network. Her group has produced internationally recognised real-world evidence on drug utilisation, health inequalities, healthcare service use and adverse outcomes associated with psychotropic use in persons with neurodegenerative disorders in Finnish nationwide cohorts of people with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Her work on Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease risk factors has assessed versatile risk factors including pharmacoepidemiological and air pollution-related factors, increased the understanding of prodromal symptoms of these conditions and pinpointed challenges in aetiological research of long latency outcomes. Professor Tolppanen has >200 international peer-reviewed articles and has supervised 10 PhD theses in pharmacoepidemiology and clinical epidemiology. She is actively engaged in teaching, and annually, 2-5 Master’s/ Bachelor’s theses are completed as original scientific articles in her group.