Prof. Helen Cross
The Prince of Wales’s Chair of Childhood Epilepsy and Head of the Developmental Neuroscience Research and Teaching Department at UCL-Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Neurology Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, London and Young Epilepsy, Lingfield, UK
Professor Cross' research has been targeted at improving outcomes in early onset epilepsy, specifically in assessing the role of surgery and ketogenic diet. She has held key leadership roles both nationally and internationally. She is currently President of the International League Against Epilepsy 2021-2025, Clinical Advisor to the National Children’s Epilepsy Surgery Service, and Clinical Advisor to the update of the NICE guidelines for Childhood Epilepsy 2018-2021. She developed, as Coordinator, the European Reference Network for Rare and Complex Epilepsies (EpiCARE) launched in 2017.
She received an ILAE Ambassador for Epilepsy award in 2007, and is a recipient of the American Academy of Neurology Sydney Carter Award, The International Child Neurology Association Frank Ford Award and the American Epilepsy Clinical Research Award. She received an OBE for contributions to childhood epilepsy in 2015.
Prof. Nicola Specchio
Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, Institute for Research and Health Care (IRCCS), Rome, Italy
Nicola Specchio is Head of the Epilepsy Unit in the Department of Neuroscience at Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, Rome, Italy. Within his role, he is responsible for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with pediatric epilepsy.
Dr Specchio’s main interest lies with seizure semiology and the classification of epileptic seizures and syndromes, drug resistant epilepsies, developmental and epileptic encephalopathies. He has published papers in many international journals. He is also a principal investigator on different clinical trials in patients with rare and complex epilepsies.
He is recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the Commission of European Affair of the International League Against Epilepsy (2016) and of the “John Stobo Pritchard Award” from the International Child Neurology Association (ICNA) (2020).
He is current Chair of the ILAE Task force on Nosology and Classification, and since 2020 member of the Global Advocacy Council of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE).
Dr Specchio is a representative of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Europe and of the Italian Chapter of the ILAE.
Prof. Elaine Wirrell
Director of Pediatric Epilepsy, Professor of Neurology and Program Director of Child and Adolescent Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. Elaine Wirrell is the Director of Pediatric Epilepsy, Professor of Neurology and Program Director of Child and Adolescent Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She completed medical school at the University of British Columbia and her Pediatric Neurology training at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
She is the past Co-chair of the Nosology and Status Epilepticus Task Force and a member of the Pediatrics Task Force of the International League Against Epilepsy. She serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Epilepsy.com and is on the Medical Advisory Board for the Dravet Syndrome Foundation.
Dr. Wirrell’s main research interests are in early onset, medically intractable epilepsies and epileptic encephalopathies and in the epidemiology of pediatric epilepsy.
She is the recipient of the 2021 Kiffin-Penry Award from the American Epilepsy Society and the 2016 Distinguished Clinician award from Mayo Clinic.
Prof. Sameer Zuberi
Consultant Paediatric Neurologist at the Royal Hospital for Children and Honorary Professor in the University of Glasgow
His undergraduate training was in Edinburgh, with postgraduate training in paediatrics and paediatric neurology in Edinburgh, Sydney and Glasgow.
His clinical and research interests include epilepsy, movement disorders, neurogenetics, channelopathies and neurological sleep disorders.
In 2005 he established the Glasgow Epilepsy Genetics Service and has been its clinical lead since then. He is Chair of the International League Against Epilepsy Commission on Classification & Terminology, Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Paediatric Neurology and Board Member of the European Paediatric Neurology Society.