Kristen K. Steenerson, MD, is a board-certified neurologist fellowship-trained in vestibular neurology. She graduated cum laude from Claremont McKenna College. She completed medical school at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, followed by a neurology residency at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where she served as chief resident. There, she discovered the unmet need of patients with vertigo and vestibular symptoms, motivating her to pursue a fellowship in otoneurology/neuro-otology at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. She joined Stanford Medicine with positions in both the Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery and the Neurology & Neurological Sciences departments, with the goal of jointly addressing the junction of inner ear and brain disorders. Her specific interests include vestibular migraine, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, Ménière’s disease, and international neurology.
Archives: Experts
Elena Gross, PhD
Dr. Elena Gross is a neuroscientist with a PhD in clinical research who has firsthand experience living with chronic migraine. The lack of tolerable and efficacious treatment options for migraine led her to pursue a MSc in neuroscience at the University of Oxford and a PhD in clinical research at the University of Basel, with the goal of having better understanding of this common and debilitating disease and ultimately improving clinical care.
Dr. Gross is passionate about the therapeutic benefits of ketosis and other nutritional interventions, the role of mitochondrial functioning and energy metabolism in brain health and neurological diseases (particularly migraine), as well as increasing our health span via disease prevention. She holds four patents, and is the founder and CEO of Brain Ritual. Her migraine research papers have been published in high-ranking journals such as Nature Reviews Neurology and Scientific Reports.
Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH
Dr. Apigian is a double board-certified physician who specializes in trauma, attachment, addictions, and addressing trauma on a cellular level. She earned her medical degree at Loma Linda University and has a master’s in biochemistry and in public health. She trained for three years as a general surgeon before changing her career path.
In addition to her medical studies, Dr. Apigian has studied with and participated in Dr. Allan Schore’s attachment regulation theory study group. She is a highly trained somatic experiencing practitioner, trained in NeuroAffective Touch, Internal Family Systems (parts work), and the Instinctual Trauma Response Model. She continues to attend advanced training in somatic experiencing with Dr. Peter Levine and acts as an editor for the website Somatic Experiencing International.
Dr. Apigian proactively seeks solutions, consistently striving to enhance the existing approach to expedite the journey toward optimal health and self-improvement.
Olivia Begasse de Dhaem, MD, FAHS
Dr. Olivia Begasse de Dhaem, a board-certified neurologist, serves as a headache specialist at the Hartford HealthCare Headache Center in Westport, Conn. Having completed her medical education and neurology residency at Columbia University in New York City, she further honed her expertise with a headache medicine fellowship at Harvard University. Dr. Begasse de Dhaem has authored numerous publications in headache medicine and has delivered talks on both national and international platforms. She is the executive editor of the Pain Medicine journal, and a co-editor of the textbook Headache: What Do I Do Now? released by Oxford University Press in April 2023.
Dr. Begasse de Dhaem is actively involved in various medical societies. She holds positions on the Education Committee of the International Headache Society, is a Fellow of the American Headache Society (AHS), and contributes to the AHS Advocacy Committee. A passionate advocate, she graduated from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Palatucci Advocacy Leadership Forum and is part of the executive committee of the International Headache Society’s Global Patient Advocacy Coalition (IHS-GPAC). With four appearances at Headache on the Hill, she played a role in drafting the paper that bolstered the advocacy efforts of 2020. Her primary advocacy focus is championing the rights of individuals with headache diseases in professional settings.
Interviews from Olivia Begasse de Dhaem, MD, FAHS
Andrew D. Hershey, MD, PhD, FAAN, FAHS
Dr. Hershey is a board-certified neurologist and the endowed chair and director of neurology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He also is a professor of pediatrics and neurology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Dr. Hershey’s research interests currently include the improved diagnosis and treatment of childhood headache disorders, characterization of outcome responses, studies in new pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment regimes, and the genomics of migraines.
Dr. Hershey has been an active member of the International Headache Society since 1998, serving on several committees, including the Child and Adolescent Standing Committee (currently the chair of the committee), the Classification Committee, and most recently, the Grading Committee. He is also active in the American Headache Society (AHS), where he served as a board member from 2006-2016, as well as on several sections, and is currently the chair of the Guidelines Committee. For the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), he served two terms as the chair of the Headache and Facial Pain Section and was involved with writing the acute and preventive treatment guidelines for children and adolescents with migraine, co-sponsored by the AAN and the AHS. He has actively advised on many pharmaceutical studies and is an active member of several committees for the National Institutes of Health, including study groups under the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-Term) Initiative.
Dale Nyholt, PhD
Dale Nyholt, PhD, is a human geneticist expert in the statistical analysis of common complex traits. Professor Nyholt is the head of the Statistical and Genomic Epidemiology Laboratory (SGEL), Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is also a professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health, QUT. Professor Nyholt’s expertise spans statistical genetic and genomic analysis, epidemiology, bioinformatics, and biostatistics.
The SGEL studies the role of genetics in the development and mechanism of human traits, with particular emphasis on migraine. The lab’s specific goal is to identify genetic risk factors, understand their biological consequences, and detect common genetic links with other disorders, including depression, endometriosis, and epilepsy. The identification of such causal genetic factors and how they interact with environmental exposures will provide a deeper understanding of the etiology of migraine and our ability to prevent and treat attacks, as well as facilitate the discovery of novel pathways, and thus identify new targets for drug therapy. SGEL also develops novel statistical bioinformatics programs used by researchers worldwide.
Elizabeth (Betsy) Seng, PhD
Dr. Elizabeth K. Seng is an associate professor at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, and a research associate professor at the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Dr. Seng’s research is broadly focused on behavioral management of pain and headache disorders, particularly migraine. She is interested in the psychosocial factors associated with migraine attack onset, higher attack frequency, and migraine-related disability. She is also interested in improving acute medication adherence.
Courtney Seebadri-White, MD
Courtney Seebadri-White, MD is a general neurologist in Philadelphia. She is currently an assistant professor of neurology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, and is also the associate director for the neurology clerkship. She received her medical degree at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in 2016 and completed her residency in neurology and fellowship in headache medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Dr. Seebadri-White specializes in diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders, including headache disorders, stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and others. As a person with migraine, she understands the challenges in the journey to diagnosis and treatment of headache disorders and the need for increased awareness of and advocacy for these conditions. Dr. Seebadri-White loves teaching medical students, her patients, and the community in general.
Amy Graham
With a profound commitment to empowering the next generation, Amy Graham brings over two decades of expertise as a creative nonprofit leader. Her unwavering dedication to grassroots organizing and program development has transformed the output of organizations she has led.
Thanks to her exceptional leadership approach in leading LiveFeed, an organization that utilized the music community to address childhood hunger, she was awarded the esteemed Washington University Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Award.
With a strong dedication to empowering underprivileged communities and ensuring that every child has the chance to succeed, she is utilizing her personal experience with migraine as the driving force behind her leadership of the Migraine at School initiative.
Rob Music
Rob joined The Migraine Trust as chief executive in February 2021 and through positive collaborations is determined to see improvements in migraine care, treatments, and access for people living with migraine. Rob has over 30 years of experience working for healthcare charities, starting out as a fundraiser, and before his current position, he held similar roles at Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust and Endometriosis U.K. He brings a range of skills, including implementing organizational growth and development, public affairs management, service development, health and policy influence, fundraising, and media and communications.
James Baraniuk, MD
James Nicholas Baraniuk, MD, is an associate professor with tenure in the Department of Medicine at Georgetown University. He is also the director of the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center, located within the Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center does research on chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War Illness, and other pain conditions. The research focuses on the areas of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); biomarker discovery through proteomic, metabolomic, and transcriptomic assays in blood and cerebrospinal fluid; autonomic testing and heart rate variability; and statistical analyses using machine learning, hierarchical clustering, and other data-mining methods.
Interviews from James Baraniuk, MD
Robert Bonakdar, MD
Dr. Robert Bonakdar received his M.D. from the University of Nevada School of Medicine and his undergraduate degree in psychobiology from Occidental College in Los Angeles. He received the Richter Fellowship for Independent International Research in the field of Southeast Asian health practices and studied in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, and Indonesia. He completed a clinical and research fellowship in integrative medicine at Scripps Clinic and has been the director of pain management at the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in La Jolla, Calif., since 2002.
In addition to family medicine, Dr. Bonakdar is certified in integrative medicine and headache medicine by the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties (UCNS). He is a Fellow of the American Nutrition Association, and a member of the American Headache Society’s Complementary and Integrative Medicine Special Interest Section, where he has helped create patient education guides. He is active in nutrition research and novel approaches to migraine.