Her research has been targeted at improving outcomes in early-onset epilepsy, specifically in assessing the role of surgery and ketogenic diet. Professor Cross is the elected Treasurer of the International League Against Epilepsy, 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 was also instrumental in setting up the European Reference Network for Rare and Complex Epilepsies called EpiCare of which she is the joint co-ordinator. She was awarded ILAE/IBE Ambassador for Epilepsy in 2007, and is the 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.

Professor Cross was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2015, and most recently has been elected as President of the International League Against Epilepsy for 4 years starting in 2021.

Colin Doherty holds the Ellen Mayston Bates Chair in Epileptology at Trinity College Dublin. He trained in Medicine and Neurology at St Vincent’s and Beaumont Hospitals, Dublin and later at the Partners Neurology Residency Programme at Harvard Medical School, Boston (Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital) where he was Chief Resident in 2001. He completed Fellowships in Epilepsy and Cognition at MGH (2001-2003).

He has been a consultant neurologist at St James’s hospital for 15 years from 2005 until the summer of 2020 when he joined the staff of TCD in the Academic Unit of Neurology. He has clinical and research interests in the areas of brain imaging, clinical epileptology, Traumatic Brain Injury and Digital Health. He is also a Principal investigator at the SFI FutureNeuro Research Centre in Dublin. Professor Doherty’s epilepsy service host the only adult Ketogenic Diet Programme in Ireland which is led by Senior Dietitian Laura Healy PhD. Established in 2016 with the help of seed funding from Matthew’s Friends, the programme accepts referrals from all over Ireland for patients with refractory epilepsy and is the only hospital using KD for refractory Status Epilepticus.