Cecilia A. Essau is a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and the Director of Centre for Applied Research and Assessment in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing (CARACAW) at the University of Roehampton, UK. Prof Essau was born and raised in the tropical jungle of Borneo Island. She received her early education in Sarawak, Malaysia and after completing her O-Level she went to Canada where she did her Highschool Diploma at Hillcrest Highschool in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts Degree, her Honours Bachelor of Arts Degree and her Master of Arts degree from Lakehead University (Canada), her PhD from the University of Konstanz (Germany), and her “Habilitation” in Psychology (qualification for tenure-track professorships in Germany) from the University of Bremen (Germany). She is the first Iban woman to have received a PhD. She has held a number of academic positions in Canadian (Lakehead University), Austrian (Karl-Franzens University Graz), and German (Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry, University of Konstanz, University of Bremen, Technical University Braunschweig, University of Muenster) universities before joining the University of Roehampton in 2004 as a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology. With research grants from numerous national and international institutions, her research has focused on understanding the interacting factors that can lead children and adolescents to have serious emotional and behavioural problems and using this research to (a) enhance the assessment of childhood and adolescent psychopathology and (b) design more effective interventions to prevent and treat such problems. Prof Essau is the author of 180 articles, and is the author/editor of 17 books in the area of youth mental health. She has been invited to deliver 26 Keynote addresses in major national and international conferences, and over 79 invited lectures/workshops in 39 countries.