Cecilie Svanes, MD PhD, is a professor at the Centre for International Health at the University of Bergen. She has conceived and now leads the ECRHS/ RHINE based multi-centre generation study RHINESSA. Svanes has been a member of the Steering Committee of the European Community Respiratory Health Study since 1997, and in the ECRHS leads the field of “Early life origins of chronic lung disease”, a field she also leads in the daughter study RHINE.

Svanes is also a specialist in pulmonary and in internal medicine, and work as a consultant in occupational respiratory diseases at the Dept Occupational Medicine, Haukeland University Hospital. She is building the only Norwegian facility for occupational specific inhalation challenges at this department.

Svanes has published a range of much cited publications in high-impact journals. Her most important scientific contribution concerns the early life origins of adult asthma, allergy and lung function. Her current focus is on preconception and transgenerational origins of allergies and lung health.