Meet the Marinus Team

Marinus’ management team is committed to developing innovative treatment options for seizures disorders in both the hospital and home setting.

Scientific Advisory Board

Jacqueline French, M.D.

Dr. French is a Professor of Neurology in the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at NYU Langone School of Medicine and Founder/Director of the Epilepsy Study Consortium, an academic group that has performed several early phase clinical trials in epilepsy.

Dr. French trained in Neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and did her fellowship training in EEG and epilepsy at Mount Sinai hospital and Yale University. Over the past 20 years she has served as the principle investigator on several trials for new epilepsy drugs and has focused her research efforts developing new therapeutics for epilepsy and novel methodologies for clinical trials.

Dr. French, who serves as Chief Medical/Innovation Officer for the Epilepsy Foundation, has been active in creating guidelines for the American Academy of Neurology and the International League Against Epilepsy. She is the editor of three books and has authored over 300 articles and chapters.

Jacqueline French

Jacqueline French, M.D.

 

Lawrence Hirsch, M.D.

Dr. Hirsch is a Professor of Neurology, Chief of Division of Epilepsy and Electroencephalography (EEG), and Co-Director of the Yale Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.

He has held leadership positions at the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society (ACNS), American Epilepsy Society, American Academy of Neurology and the Epilepsy Foundation, and is founder and former chair of the Critical Care EEG Monitoring Research Consortium, which now includes more than 50 centers across North America.

Dr. Hirsch is a lead author of the ACNS guideline on critical care EEG terminology, and has been an active researcher throughout his career, having published more than 150 original research manuscripts and more than 100 reviews, editorials or book chapters on topics including status epilepticus, EEG, and antiepileptic drugs. Dr. Hirsch is co-author of the first-ever atlas on EEG in critical care.

Lawrence Hirsch 2

Lawrence Hirsch, M.D.

 

Aatif M. Husain, M.D.

Dr. Husain is a Professor of Neurology and Division Chief of Epilepsy, Sleep, and Clinical Neurophysiology at the Duke University School of Medicine.

Dr. Husain is a world-renowned expert in clinical neurophysiology, with experience serving as president of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society, and is the treasurer of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology.

Through his research, Dr. Husain has been highly influential in the developing treatments for seizures, with landmark studies on the treatment of refractory seizures and non-convulsive status epilepticus. Among the more than 100 publications and nine books he has authored, he is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology.

Aatif Husain

Aatif M. Husain, M.D.

 

Elia M. Pestana Knight, M.D.

Dr. Pestana Knight is a staff physician specializing in pediatric epilepsy at the Epilepsy Center at the Cleveland Clinic Neurological Institute in Cleveland, Ohio. She is also an Associate Professor of Neurology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Pestana Knight completed medical school in Cuba, where she graduated at the top of her class in 1991. This was followed by training in general neurology and pediatric neurology, at the Instituto Nacional de Neurologia y Neurocirugia in Havana, Cuba, which she completed in 1996. After moving to the United States, Dr. Pestana Knight completed a research fellowship in epilepsy at the Cleveland Clinic (2004), residency training in pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital (2007), and pediatric neurology residency at the University of Michigan (2010).

She is board certified in pediatrics, neurology with special qualifications in child neurology and epilepsy. Dr. Pestana Knight has authored more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals related to epilepsy and neurological disorders. Her areas of research interest include co-morbidities in pediatric epilepsy, developmental and epileptic encephalopathy, in particular CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder and CSWSS/ESES, epilepsy surgery and pediatric epilepsy outcomes. She is also an enthusiastic teacher.

Elia M. Pestana Knight, Headshot, White Lab Coat, Ps

Elia M. Pestana Knight, M.D.

 

Michael Rogawski M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Rogawski is a Professor of Neurology and Pharmacology at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine, and is an internationally recognized expert on drug discovery and development for epilepsy, with a research focus on neuroactive steroids.

He received his M.D. and Ph.D. (pharmacology) from Yale and trained in neurology at Johns Hopkins. He has served on the board of directors of the American Epilepsy Society and has been a member of advisory panels to the National Institutes of Health. He has authored more than 275 research papers, reviews, and book chapters, and edited five books.

He co-directs the University of California Drug Discovery Consortium; is on the active medical staff of UC Davis Health, where he served as chair of the Department of Neurology; and teaches at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Dr. Rogawski was formerly chief of the Epilepsy Research Section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Michael Rjawski 2

Michael Rogawski M.D., Ph.D.

 

Nicola Specchio, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Specchio is Head of the Rare and Complex Epilepsy unit in the Department of Neuroscience at Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome, Italy.  

Dr. Specchio main activity is the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric epileptic patients, with a focus in seizure semiology, classification of epileptic seizures and syndromes. He works in the field of pre-surgical evaluation of patients with drug resistant epilepsy and in the selection of patients with genetic epilepsies. Dr. Specchio has published papers in international journals with main interest on epilepsy, including Epilepsia, Epilepsy Research, and Epilepsy and Behavior.

Dr. Specchio currently is responsible for different clinical research projects regarding invasive monitoring of epileptic patients and the genetic etiology of epileptic encephalopathy in the first three years of life. Dr. Specchio is a representative of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Europe and the Italian Chapter of the ILAE. He is the author and co-author of over 170 published scientific journal articles and several book chapters.

Nicola Headshot

Nicola Specchio, M.D., Ph.D.

 

Elizabeth Thiele, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Thiele is Director of the Pediatric Epilepsy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Director, Herscot Center for Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC) as well as Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Thiele was instrumental in the founding of the Herscot Center, the first systematic and broad multi-disciplinary clinical program for longitudinal care for children and adults with TSC. Her research has focused on the effect of diet in pediatric epilepsy, particularly the use of low glycemic index treatment (LGIT) to keep blood sugar levels low and better manage childhood epilepsy.

Dr. Thiele graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, with an A.B. in Biology and Religious Studies. She received her M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. She is the author or co-author of nearly 200 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. Thiele

Elizabeth Thiele, M.D., Ph.D.

 

Eugen Trinka, M.D.

Dr. Trinka is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurology, Christian Doppler University Hospital at the Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Austria.

He earned is Doctorate of Medicine at Medizinische Universität Wien and his Master of Health Science at The Tyrolean Private University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology. Dr. Trinka’s research interests include clinical epileptology with a focus on epidemiology, prognosis, epilepsy surgery, and status epilepticus. He is the founding member of the European Epilepsy Consortium, dedicated to clinical drug trials in the field of epilepsy and has authored more than 480 scientific publications and book chapters, including the seminal paper describing the diagnostic criteria for non-convulsive status epilepticus called the Salzburg criteria.

Dr. Trinka is the current President of the Austrian Society of Neurology, past president of the Austrian Society for Epilepsy, Austrian Society for Clinical Neurophysiology and the Society of Epilepsy Surgery Centres in Germany, Austria. He has been elected as Chair of ILAE-EUROPE in 2017. He also serves on the ILAE Task force of Classification of Status Epilepticus, the Commission on Medical Treatment, the ILAE Working group on pre-clinical drug discovery, and the ILAE Task Force on regulatory affairs.

Eugen Trinka

Eugen Trinka, M.D.