James Boardman is a professor of neonatal medicine and director of the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory at the University of Edinburgh. His research investigates new ways of reducing brain injury and restoring learning potential after adverse early life events. His significant contributions include characterising atypical brain development after preterm birth using quantitative MRI, elucidating how the perinatal stress environment and systemic inflammation interact with brain development, and mapping the effect of socioeconomic gradients on brain growth. His current work seeks to understand which perinatal exposures confer risk and resilience for neurodevelopmental and educational outcomes in children born preterm and to identify the biological axes that embed those exposures in child development. Boardman is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a past president of the Neonatal Society, holds a UKRI MRC programme grant and is the editor of Avery and MacDonald’s Neonatology, an internationally leading text on pathophysiology and management of the newborn.