Heather Etchevers is a tenured scientist with the Institut National de la Santé et la Recherche Médicale in Marseille, France. She earned a joint Ph.D. with the University of California at Berkeley and Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. Her research group is located at the Université Aix-Marseille, within a department devoted to the diagnosis, study and treatment of rare genetic disorders. Using experimental approaches from basic developmental biology, animal and cellular models, and human tissues, Dr. Etchevers and her collaborators have published over 45 peer-reviewed articles on the etiology of multiple congenital malformations. Since 1999, Dr. Etchevers regularly addresses rare disease patient advocacy groups and offers courses in embryology for continuing medical education around the world. She is currently on the editorial boards of Birth Defects Research Part A: Clinical and Molecular Teratology and PeerJ, and chairs the Scientific Advisory Board for the international Naevus Global federation.