Her main field of work is comparative neuroanatomy; her findings include a method of counting neurons in human and other animals' brains[1] and the relation between the cerebral cortex area and the thickness and number of cortical folds.

[2] Suzana Herculano-Houzel was born in 1972 in Rio de Janeiro.

She graduated in biology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1992), took a master's degree at Case Western Reserve (1995), and a doctorate in neuroscience at Paris VI University (1999).

She was also a post-doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research.

[3] She published books on popularization of science and writes columns for Folha de S.Paulo newspaper and Scientific American Brazil magazine.