Eric Fombonne worked at INSERM (the National Institute of Health and Medical Research) in France before his move to the UK in 1993 where he was Reader in Epidemiological Child Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry (King’s College London ) and Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital.

In 2001, he was appointed at McGill University and is heading the McGill University Division of Child Psychiatry at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. In November 2001, he was awarded a Canada Research Chair in Child Psychiatry. He has over 100 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and 25 chapters in books. He is a Fellow of the UK Royal College of Psychiatry (FRCPsych) and, in addition to serving on the advisory board of several scientific journals, he has been Associate Editor of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders since 1994. He serves on the scientific committees of several international organisations and research institutes. His research has concentrated on genetic, family and adoption studies of autism, on assessment methods, and on the epidemiology of autism and PDDs. He has been particularly active in the research debate focusing on the increasing rates of autism and on the putative links between autism and specific environmental exposures such as immunization.