Lieza Exalto, is a neurologist who has received her medical training in the UMC Utrecht. In 2014 she obtained her PhD degree with the thesis “Diabetes and Dementia, the bitter taste of a sweet disease”. Afterwards she continued her research in the Vascular Cognitive Impairment group of prof. Biessels and introduced sex and gender differences as relevant research topic. Lieza received funding from Alzheimer Nederland for her project “Does sex modulate the phenotype and prognosis of vascular cognitive impairment”.

Lieza is work-package leader “sex differences” in the Dutch Heart-Brain Consortium study. She collaborates with the META-VCI MAP consortium on research projects on sex differences in post-stroke cognitive impairment. In the European multicenter H2020 study RECOGNISED, she is work-package leader of the cognitive testing. In February 2020 she received the prize for best integration of sex and gender considerations in cardiovascular research plans, during the Libin International Trainee Symposium: Research is Better with Sex and Gender!