International Speakers
Information Coming Soon
Prof Rufus O. Akinyemi (Nigeria)
Rufus O. Akinyemi, winner of the 2023 Gold Medal Prize (Life Sciences) of the Nigerian Academy of Science (NAS), is a Professor of Geriatric Neurology and Translational Neuroscience and Director of the Biomedical Research Centre, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He holds a PhD from Newcastle University, UK; an MSc in Cell Biology and Genetics and a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Ibadan, fellowships of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria(Internal Medicine/ Neurology) and the Global Brain Health Institute. He was recently elected fellow of both the Nigerian Academy of Science and the Academy of Medicine Specialties of Nigeria. His research focuses on vascular and degenerative brain disorders using a translational bench-bedside-community framework. He spearheaded the establishment of the African Stroke Organization (ASO) and the African Dementia Consortium (AfDC) and hosted the first African Stroke Leaders’ Summit in 2022. He has been involved with the largest study of stroke in Africa, the NIH-funded SIREN-SIBS Genomics Study in the last decade. He’s well published in peer-reviewed journals with over 250 publications, H- index of 68 and 86,389 citations. Prof Craig Anderson (Australia)
Dr Anderson’s research leadership is recognised through fellowship of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. He is an international authority on the causes, treatment and management of stroke, and other aspects of cardiovascular disease. He has initiated and led multiple, large-scale, clinical trials through a global network to influence guidelines recommendations and clinical practice. This has included defining the optimal approaches to the control of blood pressure in the acute and long-term phases of both ischaemic and haemorrhagic forms of stroke; different approaches to nursing care in patients with acute stroke; models of service delivery, pharmacological enhancement with antidepressants, and task-shifting for stroke rehabilitation in low-resource settings; the role of minimally-invasive surgery for the treatment of intracerebral haemorrhage; and whether continuous positive airway pressure, the most common treatment for obstructive sleep apnoea, can modify the risk of serious cardiovascular events in high-risk patients. His contributions have also included undertaken multiple population-based epidemiological studies to quantify the burden of stroke in Australasia and parts of Asia; systematic reviews to quantify the effects of different treatments within and outside of the Cochrane Stroke Group; and guideline committees in Australia and overseas. He continues to make a significant contribution to mentorship and postgraduate supervision, whilst maintaining significant peer-review responsibilities for research funding organisations and leading medical journals, both as an editor and ad-hoc reviewer. He has received numerous awards for research excellence and in contributing to the development of various professional stroke organisations. His election as President-elect of the World Stroke Organisation in 2024-2026 is testament to his standing in the professional community. Prof Ray Chaudhuri (UK)
Professor K. Ray Chaudhuri is a Professor of Neurology/Movement Disorders at King’s College Hospital and King’s College London and Medical Director of the Parkinson Foundation International Centre of Excellence at King’s College. He is Chairman of the Membership and Public Relations Committee of the Movement Disorders Society (MDS), was a member of the MDS Congress Scientific Programme Committee (2013–2017), and is Chairman of the MDS Non-Motor Parkinson’s Disease Study Group and a member of the MDS-ES Education Committee. He is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the njp Parkinson’s Disease (2020 impact factor 6.75), Guest Editor for special editions of Frontiers in Neurology and Journal of Parkinson’s Disease, and reviewer for all mainstream movement disorder journals as well as JAMA, Neurology, Annals of Neurology, BMJ, Brain, Lancet, and Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry. He serves as an advisor (MHRA health technology and scientific advisor) to the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as well as Parkinson’s UK and the European Parkinson’s Disease Association. Professor Chaudhuri is the author of over 500 articles, co-editor of 5 books on Parkinson’s disease and restless leg syndrome, and winner of the British Medical Association Book Awards commendation in 2015 and 2017. He is also the recipient of the 2018 Jay Van Andel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Parkinson’s Disease Research (pioneering holistic assessments and non-motor subtypes), as well as the National Institute for Health Research/Royal College of Physicians award for outstanding research leadership in 2017. He was elected an honorary member of the Movement Disorders Society in 2021 and received the UK NHS Gold Merit award in 2021 for excellence in research and clinical service. He pioneered the use of intrajejunal levodopa in the UK and is now leading on subcutaneous levodopa. He has been a guest lecturer worldwide, including in Japan, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, India, Africa, the US, Russia, and Europe. In 2022, he is ranked fourth in the world for Parkinson’s publications since 2014 and no. 1 in the UK (expertscape Parkinson’s disease). Prof Gavin Giovannoni (UK)
Gavin Giovannoni holds the Chair of Neurology, Blizard Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University London and the Department of Neurology, Barts Health NHS Trust in November. Gavin did his undergraduate medical training at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. His clinical interests are multiple sclerosis and other inflammatory disorders of the central nervous system. He is particularly interested in clinical issues related to optimising MS disease-modifying therapies. His current research focuses on the Epstein-Barr virus as a possible cause of multiple sclerosis and MS prevention. Gavin has also developed and validated several digital innovations to communicate complex information to people with MS and their families (see ClinicSpeak, MS Brain Health, Digesting Science and MS-Selfie). Dr Patricia Greenstein (USA)
Dr. Greenstein graduated from the University of Witwatersrand Medical School Johannesburg, South Africa. She then completed neurology residency training in the Harvard Longwood program, and then genetics and neurogenetics fellowship at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and is based at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston where she provides clinical care to patients with inherited neurogenetic diseases and is the clinical director of the Neurogenetics Clinic. She also participates in clinical trials for patients with spinocerebellar ataxias. Dr Karolina Poplawska-Domaszewicz (UK)
Dr. Karolina Popławska-Domaszewicz (PhD, MD) graduated from the Karol Marcinkowski University of Medical Sciences in Poznań, Poland and is a Senior Lecturer and a clinical academic neurologist at the Department of Neurology of the University Clinical Hospital in Poznań. She is also visiting faculty and senior researcher at the world renowned Kings Parkinson’s centre of Excellence in Kings College Hospital (KCH) in London, UK (https://parkinsons-london.co.uk/kings-parkinsons-coe-team/.) and visiting faculty/mentor at Kings College Hospital Dubai, UAE. She obtained her PhD in 2017 and is developing her research portfolio addressing non-motor aspects of Parkinson’s disease (PD), modern treatment of PD with the use of infusion therapies and deep brain stimulation (DBS) in addition to pioneering the “stepped care” strategy for PD. She is considered a Polish lead on subcutaneous levodopa infusion therapy as well as intrajejunal levodopa carbidopa entacpone infusion. She is involved in several international projects defining non-motor subtypes of Parkinson and committee member of Movement Disorders Society (MDS) Industry Engagement Group as well as the PD non-motor study group. She is also an elected member of the MDS LEAP programme (Leadership programme). She has lectured internationally in the UK, Romania, India, Dubai, Indonesia, Australia and is an active member of the Polish Neurological Society and the European Academy of Neurology. She is also invited lecturer in 2024 at Abbvie annual congress in Warsaw and Parkinson Experts congress in Frankfurt, and in 2025 in Bial annual congress (Lisbon), South African Movement Disorders group and NASA in Feb and May 2025 and she is the coordinating centre for wearable sensor data capture in Poland and is a key personnel in the European PKG registry and co editor of sleep supplement of Sleep Medicine Clinics (Elsevier) journal. She is also leading in digital assessment of cognition of PD in Poland. Her special interests are advanced therapies in PD, Stepped Care for PD and dystonia nonmotor features. Dr Simon Rinaldi (UK)
Dr Rinaldi is a clinician scientist and clincal neurologist who leads the University of Oxford’s programme of inflammatory neuropathy research. This research spans from in vitro disease modelling using cell-based assays to biomarker discovery, clinical phenotyping, and clinical trials. His lab have developed models of immune mediated axonal injury and demyelination using human induced pluripotent stem cell derived myelinating co-cultures. These experimental systems are now being used to learn more about the mechanisms of immune-mediated peripheral nerve injury, and are a valuable tool in the search for novel auto-antibodies and for the discovery and pre-clinical evaluation of fluid biomarkers. The lab also runs the only UK based diagnostic testing service for nodal and paranodal antibodies, which associate with distinct forms of autoimmune nodopathy, and the underlying B-cell biology of these and related peripheral nerve disorders is a more recent area of study. His research programme also includes a clinical / observational study of chronic inflammatory neuropathy (Bio-SPiN). The group additionally contributes to and benefits from close links with the comprehensive and high-quality clinical-serological database of 2000 patients encapsulated in the International GBS Outcome Study (IGOS), and has been involved in therapeutic trials in Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP), and multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN). Prof Tissa Wijeratne (Australia)
Prof Tissa Wijeratne (MBBS, MD, PhD, FRACP, FRCP (Edin & London), FAAN, FAHA). Professor Tissa Wijeratne is an internationally recognised neurologist, elected Trustee of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN), and a global leader in headache medicine, brain health, and neurorehabilitation. Based in Melbourne, Australia, he is Director of Neurology and Stroke Services at Western Health and Adjunct Professor at Victoria University, RMIT, and La Trobe University. Prof. Wijeratne has pioneered multidisciplinary stroke, headache, and neurorehabilitation programs across Australia and the Asia-Oceania region. He is Vice President (Asia-Oceania) for the World Federation for NeuroRehabilitation and has led numerous global initiatives to improve access to neurological care in underserved populations. His team was among the first to describe the neurological complications of COVID-19, including long COVID, and he is one of the world’s most highly cited researchers in this field—with over 138,000 citations and an h-index of 87. He is a founding leader of the Australia New Zealand Headache Society, and co-author of three public books and an award-winning film on migraine and brain health. He is a passionate educator, having trained over 50 neurologists and reached thousands through public outreach programs, including his weekly brain health TV segment.