Professor Elaine Wirrell
Professor of Neurology, Chair, Child and Adolescent Neurology
Prof. Elaine Wirrell is Professor of Neurology and Chair of Child and Adolescent Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She completed medical school at the University of British Columbia and her Paediatric Neurology training at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
She is the current Chair of the Paediatrics Commission of the International League Against Epilepsy and past Co-chair of the Nosology and Status Epilepticus Task Force. She serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Epilepsy.com and is on the Medical Advisory Board for the Dravet Syndrome Foundation and the Lennox-Gastaut Foundation.
Prof. Wirrell’s main research interests are in early onset, medically intractable epilepsies and developmental and epileptic encephalopathies and in the epidemiology of paediatric 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.
Professor Helen Cross
The Prince of Wales’s Chair of Childhood Epilepsy and Director, 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 was elected President of the International League Against Epilepsy 2021-2025, and is currently Clinical Advisor to the National Children’s Epilepsy Surgery Service. 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.
Professor Hideo Yamanouchi
Professor, Paediatrics and Director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, Saitama Medical University Hospital, Japan
Hideo Yamanouchi is Professor of Paediatrics and Director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Saitama Medical University Hospital in Japan. After completing his paediatric neurology training at the National Center Hospital of Neurology and Psychiatry (NCNP), he worked as a research fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where he conducted neuropathological research on epilepsy. He is a paediatric neurologist and epileptologist specializing in developmental and epileptic encephalopathies and epilepsy genetics, as well as acute encephalopathy and status epilepticus. He has contributed extensively to clinical care, research, and medical education and has been deeply involved in global child neurology initiatives. He currently serves as Secretary-General of the Asian & Oceanian Child Neurology Association (AOCNA) and has held leadership roles in the Infantile Seizure Society. He has authored numerous publications and continues to support global capacity-building in paediatric epilepsy.
Professor Nicola Specchio
Chair of Neurology, Epilepsy and Movement Disorders Unit
Director of Research Unit on Neurological and Neurosurgical Diseases
Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy
Nicola Specchio, MD, PhD, is chair of the Neurology, Epilepsy and Movement Disorders Unit at Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, and Director of its Research Unit on Neurological and Neurosurgical Diseases in Rome, Italy. He is Guest Professor in Paediatric Neurology at the University of Leuven, Belgium.
His main interest lies with seizure semiology and the classification of epileptic seizures and syndromes, drug-resistant epilepsies, and developmental and epileptic encephalopathies. He has published more than 300 papers in many international journals and is also Principal Investigator on different clinical trials in patients with rare and complex epilepsies and developmental and epileptic encephalopathies.
Prof. Specchio is Past-Chair of the ILAE Terminology Commission, and since 2020, a member of the ILAE Global Advocacy Council. He is chair of ILAE-Europe.