Ileana Hanganu-Opatz studied Biology and Biochemistry at the University Bucharest, Romania and did a PhD in Neurophysiology at University of Düsseldorf. After a postdoctoral stage at INSERM Marseille, she received Emmy Noether- and BMBF-Fellowships as well as an ERC Consolidator Grant to set the own lab at University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf (UKE). Ileana Hanganu-Opatz is the director of the Institute of Developmental Neurophysiology at UKE and the speaker of the Hamburg Center of Neuroscience and the Research Unit 5159. Her research focus are the developing neuronal networks in health and neuropsychiatric disorders.