Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Program Team

Adult Epilepsy

Robert Fisher, MD, PhD
Maslah Saul MD Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Director of Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Program

Robert S. Fisher, MD, PhD is Maslah Saul MD Professor and Director of the Stanford Epilepsy Center and EEG lab. He had research funding or awards from the Klingenstein Foundation, Epilepsy Foundation, CURE, American Society of Clinical Neurophysiology, NIH and NSF. He has published about 230 peer-reviewed articles and 3 books. He has been named every year from 1996 to 2019 in Best Doctors in America.  He received the Ambassador Award from the International League Against Epilepsy, the 2005 American Epilepsy Society Service Award and the 2006 Annual Clinical Research Award. Dr. Fisher is Past-President of the American Epilepsy Society, and has served on the Board of the International League Against Epilepsy and as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, Epilepsia. He is past Editor-in-Chief of the world’s most visited website about epilepsy, epilepsy.com. Dr. Fisher led the projects to develop a formal definition of who has epilepsy and an update of seizure type classification. His recent research is on new devices to detect and treat seizures. He led the clinical trials on deep brain stimulation for epilepsy and on the next-generation (heart-rate-sensing) vagus nerve stimulation device. Dr. Fisher has additionally won several teaching awards and cares for epilepsy patients in the Stanford Epilepsy Clinics and inpatient epilepsy unit.


Kimford J. Meador, MD
Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Director of the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit

Dr. Meador received his MD from the Medical College of Georgia.  After an internship at the University of Virginia and service as an officer in the Public Health Corps, he completed a residency in Neurology at the Medical College of Georgia and a fellowship in Behavioral Neurology at the University of Florida. Dr. Meador is currently the Multi-PI on a multicenter NIH investigation on the pregnancy outcomes in women with epilepsy including neurodevelopmental effect of fetal antiepileptic drug exposure. Dr. Meador has authored over 400 peer-reviewed publications and has served on the editorial boards of numerous journals.


Jessica Falco Walter, MD
Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Walter received her MD from Georgetown University in Washington, DC. She stayed at Georgetown for her internship in Internal Medicine and then moved to New York City to complete her residency in Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She went on to pursue a Clinical Neurophysiology Fellowship at Rush University in Chicago, IL, training in both EEG and EMG. Due to her particular interest in Epilepsy she went on to become the first Epilepsy Fellow at Rush University. Dr. Walter provides clinical care to general neurology patients as well as patients with epilepsy and enjoys teaching residents and medical students. She also has a particular interest in dietary treatments for epilepsy and clinical research.


Kevin Graber, MD
Clinical Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Director of Outpatient Epilepsy Clinic

Dr. Kevin Graber earned his MD from Indiana University in 1992 and completed his training in Neurology & Neurological Sciences at Stanford Medical Center. Dr Graber has earned prestigious research awards and has served on several national committees including the American Epilepsy Society, CURE, and Epilepsy Foundation. As a Clinician Educator, Dr. Graber provides clinical care to patients with epilepsy, and teaches fellows, residents, and medical students. Dr. Graber's research is focused on discovering how brain injuries, such as trauma, lead to epilepsy.


Scheherazade Le, MD
Clinical Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Scheherazade Le is a Clinical Professor within the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.   Within the AEC, she cares for patients who suffer from immune-mediated seizures/epilepsy.  Treatments may include immunotherapy, anti-seizure medications, epilepsy surgery, laser ablation and/or neuromodulation.  She is accepting new patient referrals.  Her research is focused on identifying and treating undiagnosed immune-mediated seizures and characterizing immune-mediated seizures/epilepsy in patients with autoimmune encephalitis.


Yi Li, MD, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Yi Li received her M.D. and Ph.D. from Central South University in China, conducting her Ph.D. research as a visiting graduate student at UCLA. She received two national grants in China to research the role of neurogenesis in animal models of refractory temporal lobe epilepsy. Dr. Li received her residency training from University of Massachusetts Medical School, during which time she received a Safety and Quality Award from the American Academy of Neurology. She then continued her training as an epilepsy clinical and research fellow at Stanford. She is interested in medically refractory epilepsy management, epilepsy clinical research, precision medicine and genetics in epilepsy, and improving quality of patient care.


Martha Morrell, MD
Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Morrell has focused her career on the treatment of patients with epilepsy, including health issues for women with epilepsy. She attended Stanford Medical School, then completed her residency in Neurology and her fellowship in EEG and epilepsy at University of Pennsylvania. After founding the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, she moved to Columbia University where she was the Caitlin Tynan Doyle Professor of Epilepsy and Director of the Columbia Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. She returned in 2004 and sees patients in the Epilepsy Clinic. She is currently the Chief Medical Officer for NeuroPace, a company focused on brain stimulation for epilepsy.


Josef Parvizi, MD, PhD
Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Director of Stanford Program for Intractable Epilepsy

Dr. Parvizi’s clinical training is from Mayo Clinic- Rochester, BIDMC-Harvard University, and UCLA. His major interest is in the study of seizure propagation and treating patients with intractable epilepsy. His special expertise is in detecting the epileptic source in patients with uncontrolled seizures and mapping the brain circuitries that underlie development and spread of seizures. He performs functional brain mapping of the brain during epilepsy surgery evaluations. Dr. Parvizi is also the Director of the Stanford Human Intracranial Cognitive Electrophysiology Program (SHICEP), and is involved in multidisciplinary collaborative research projects with several Stanford principal investigators to understand how different parts of the human brain work and how their function may be broken during seizures.


Babak Razavi, MD, PhD
Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Razavi's clinical interests are in medically refractory epilepsies and using high density EEG (electroencephalogram) for better localization of seizure foci. His research areas include using engineering techniques for analyzing EEGs, medical devices for evaluation and treatment of epilepsy, and using seizures as a model for understanding consciousness.


Zahra Sadat-Hossieny, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor
Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Sadat received her MD from The George Washington University School of Medicine. She spent two months during medical school in South America and obtained a certificate in global health. She completed her residency in Neurology at The Ohio State University and Fellowship in Epilepsy at Stanford University. She is passionate about providing cutting-edge, personalized and evidence-based care that is delivered with compassion. Her research focuses on developing therapeutics that optimize cognition and improve outcomes for patients with epilepsy and neurologic diseases.


Niyatee Samudra, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Neurology & Neurological Sciences

Dr. Samudra is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She specializes in the care of patients with memory disorders and epilepsy. She has completed fellowship training in behavioral neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, as well as in epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Samudra is board-certified in neurology and in epilepsy.

Her research interests include clinical trials in memory disorders and epilepsy; early neurophysiological markers of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders; neuropsychiatric symptoms in neurodegenerative disorders; and the cognitive and neuropsychiatric consequences of epilepsy. She is interested in improving neurologic care for underserved populations.

Dr. Samudra has published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease; Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports; Journal of the Neurological Sciences; Seizure; and Epilepsy and Behavior, among others. She is a member of the American Academy of Neurology.

Instructors

Erica Von Stein, MD
Clinical Instructor

Erica graduated summa cum laude with a B.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, where she attended on a 4-year full tuition merit scholarship. She earned her M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. At Penn she was awarded a Guggenheim Neurosurgery Research Fellowship. She completed her internship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center followed by Neurology residency and Epilepsy fellowship at Stanford. Her research interests broadly include brain-computer interface, surgical epilepsy, network neuroscience, comparative epilepsy.

Manveer Dilts-Garcha, MD, MA
Clinical Instructor/Chief Epilepsy Educational Fellow

Manny graduated from the USF Morsani School of Medicine SELECT MD leadership program and before that completed an undergraduate degree in Biology and a Professional Science Master’s in Stem Cell Research at California State University Sacramento. Manny is passionate about advancing the future of science and medicine, both through academic endeavors as well as through policy. Their accomplishments include research in the field of regenerative medicine, publications in biophotonics, awards for healthcare quality improvement, ongoing engagement at the legislative level to reform health policy and improve resident wellbeing, and serving as a founding member and delegate of the UC Davis Residents Union, CIR. Originally from Vancouver, Canada and the child of immigrant parents who fled religious persecution in their native India, Manny is acutely sensitive to the struggles of underserved communities, and disadvantaged groups and is a strong proponent of universal healthcare for all Americans and for health care reform. In their spare time they enjoy wood working, powerlifting, cooking, photography and spending time with their family. Manny is excited for the next chapter in their academic career as an Epilepsy Fellow at Stanford.

Mehraneh Khadjevand, MD, MPH
Clinical Instructor/Second Year Epilepsy Fellow

Mehraneh completed her posdoctral fellowship at Mayo Clinic, MN, where she investigated human memory, and worked on interictal biomarkers of epileptic brain. Afterwards she completed her residency at Tufts medical center, and served as the academic chief resident, and received the Award for Excellence in Medical Student Teaching and the Resident Teaching Award. Her goal is finding a reliable interictal biomarker for guiding epilepsy surgery.

Adult Epilepsy Fellows

Roger Chang, MD, PhD
Adult Epilepsy Fellow

Roger earned his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He completed his doctorate work in the lab of Dr. Robert Edwards at UCSF, determining the unique, dual role of chloride in synaptic vesicular glutamate transport. He subsequently received his MD at UCSF. He completed his internship and Neurology residency at University of Washington. At University of Washington, he worked with Dr. Garret Stuber’s lab investigating neuronal circuits involved in nociception and resultant maladaptive behaviors in Zebrafish. In addition to his clinical interest in providing care for patients with medically refractory epilepsy, one of his main research interests is determining the effects of epilepsy on cognition and behavior.

Christopher Primiani
Adult Epilepsy Fellow

Chris Primiani is a Neurology Epilepsy Fellow at Stanford. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in neuroscience from the University of Florida. After college, he completed a two-year Predoctoral Fellowship in cell biology and gene expression at the National Institute of Aging. Chris completed his medical degree at University of South Florida before completing his adult neurology residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. His research interest includes the intersection of neuroscience and technology, particularly brain-machine interface, and medical devices in the treatment of epilepsy.

Trevor Rafferty, MD
Adult Epilepsy Fellow

Jackie (Jacqueline) Summers Stromberg, MD
Adult Epilepsy Fellow

Spencer Nam, MD
CNP/Chief Epilepsy Fellow

Capt. Nam received an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Stanford University, and his MD from Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. As an officer in the US Air Force, he completed residency at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Dedicated to clinical care and teaching, he hopes to eventually open an epilepsy monitoring unit at San Antionio Military Medica Center and influence training of future Air Force neurologists. He also performed as a violin soloist at Carnegie Hall and performed with the US Army Orchestra and with members of the Philadelphia orchestra

Advanced Practice Providers and Nurse Practitioners

Mimi Callanan, RN, MSN, ACNS-BC
Epilepsy Clinical Nurse Specialist

Ms. Callanan has many years experience as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Epilepsy. She has been in this role at Stanford since the Center opened in 1990. She received her undergraduate degree at St Louis University and her graduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania.  She is a past member of the Professional Advisory Board of the Epilepsy Foundation of America. She is a past President of the Epilepsy Society of San Francisco and was on the Board of Directors of the Epilepsy Foundation of Northern California. She is author of several publications pertaining to education of patients and families about epilepsy, and to the impact of epilepsy on life.


Tenzin D. Lama, DNP, FNP, CNL, RN
Nurse Practitioner

Tenzin Lama received her DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice) with Family Nurse Practitioner degree from University of San Francisco. She has also received her MSN- CNL (Clinic Nurse Leader) from the same university. Tenzin joined the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center in 2016 and has been working as a Nurse Practitioner in providing care and coordination of services for patients with Epilepsy.


Cristal Padron BSN,RN
RN Coordinator

Cristal Padron received her BSN from Chamberlain University in 2015. She spent most of her career as an travel nurse, specializing in Medical-surgical and stroke units throughout the US. Cristal joined the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center team in 2023 and has a focus in providing care and coordination of services for patients with Epilepsy.