Page B. Pennell, MD

Page B. Pennell, MD is Director of Research for the Epilepsy Division of the Department of Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her previous academic appointments included positions as Associate Professor of Neurology and Director of the Epilepsy Program at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Dr. Pennell has served on the editorial boards for the journals Epilepsia and The Neurologist, and has served as a Contributing Editor for Epilepsy Currents. Dr. Pennell has also published over 50 papers in her field. She is a Fellow in the American Neurological Association, and a member of the American Epilepsy Society, and American Academy of Neurology. In the American Epilepsy Society she has served as Co-chair for two Special Interest Groups addressing concerns for women with epilepsy, and as Chair of the Clinical Therapeutics Committee. For the American Academy of Neurology, she has served as a speaker and as a Course Director at the annual meeting and on the Quality Standards Subcommittee and Therapeutics and Technology Assessment Subcommittee that provided the Practice Parameter update on pregnancy in women with epilepsy.

Dr. Pennell’s primary research interests are on gender-specific issues for women with epilepsy; for example, the effects of sex steroid hormones and other neuroactive steroids on seizure provocation, treatment trials for catamenial epilepsy, and pregnancy in women with epilepsy with an emphasis on optimizing maternal and fetal outcomes. Other areas of research interest include pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacogenetics of antiepileptic drugs, and investigational drug and device trials for medically refractory epilepsy.