Keynote speaker: Dr. Brandy Fureman

Dr. Fureman serves as the Epilepsy Foundation of America's Vice President of Research and New Therapies and leads the foundation's efforts to support basic, translational, and clinical epilepsy research and new therapies designed to help 3 million people living with epilepsy in a timeframe that matters today. Dr. Fureman also focuses on unifying the epilepsy reasearch community to help acceletate therapies.  More info about Dr. Fureman here. 

Before joining the Epilepsy Foundation, Dr. Fureman was with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) since 2001 and is currently Program Director in the Channels, Synapses and Circuits cluster. She was responsible for identifying epilepsy research issues critical to NINDS and National Institutes of Health (NIH), and for coordinating the Institute's Epilepsy Research Benchmarks. Dr. Fureman previously served as a Clinical Research Project Manager in the NINDS Clinical Trials Group where she was responsible for overseeing the NINDS Clinical Research Collaboration Network and a number of Data and Safety Monitoring Boards for Phase III clinical trials in epilepsy, head injury, and stroke rehabilitation. Dr. Fureman has also served as a Health Science Policy Analyst in the NINDS Office of Science Policy and Planning and as a Presidential Management Fellow at the NINDS.  

Dr. Fureman graduated from Cedar Crest College with a B.S. in Genetic Engineering Technology and received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Department of Neuroscience and Anatomy at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. Her research interests focused on molecular and behavioral effects of ion channelopathy in episodic neurological disorders.

“Partnerships are the key to the Epilepsy Foundation’s vision for strengthening research and new therapies,” said Dr. Fureman. “We will be working closely with our friends at NIH, the American Epilepsy Society, CURE, and organizations focusing on rare epilepsies. We will also be encouraging pharmaceutical, device, and biotech companies – as well as individuals and families – to join us as advocates in our vision to help ensure new therapies are available in a timeframe that matters for the millions of people living with seizures today.”