Diana Kuh is Professor of Life Course Epidemiology at University College London. Between 2007 and 2017, Diana established and directed the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing (LHA) at UCL, and was the scientific Director of the MRC National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD), the oldest of the British birth cohort studies that has followed up over 5000 individuals since their birth in March 1946.  Diana’s research involves three key and mutually reinforcing areas where she has made internationally acknowledged seminal contributions. The first is the creation and advancement of the field of life course epidemiology, that is the study of biological, social and psychosocial risk processes from early life that influence adult health, ageing and chronic disease risk: Diana is the co-author of key textbooks, editorials and reviews. The second comprises her original research, mainly on the NSHD, into the scientific discovery of lifetime influences on ageing. In a broad range of over 400 publications she has shown the importance of childhood development and lifetime socioeconomic factors, lifestyle and health experience on later adiposity, cardiovascular and reproductive function, strength and physical performance, quality of life and survival. The third is Diana’s leadership of the NSHD, where her team and key collaborators have built on the legacy of her predecessors to develop NSHD into an integrated and interdisciplinary life course study of ageing.