Dr. Hossein Ansari is a board-certified neurologist, associate professor and certified headache specialist at UC San Diego, where he specializes in diagnosing and treating headaches and facial pain. Dr. Ansari’s clinical expertise also includes developing guidelines for managing headaches in the emergency room, trigeminal neuropathy, Botox administration and nerve blocks and sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) block procedures for head/facial pain, as well as neurological problems resulting from systemic disease.
Dr. Ansari is a fellow of both the American Academy of Neurology and the American Headache Society. He is an active member of numerous professional societies, including the International Headache Society, where he serves on the advisory council.
Interviews from Hossein Ansari, MD
Autoimmune Diseases and Facial Pain
Elena Ruiz de la Torre is one of the leading patient advocates and researchers in the world. She is a tireless and passionate champion for people with headache disorders in the workplace and beyond, with her advocacy career beginning in her native Spain, and then expanding to Europe, and now the world. Elena leads the European Migraine and Headache Alliance, a nonprofit patient umbrella group that represents 35 patient groups from across the continent. She also co-led the creation of WHAM, the World Health and Migraine organization, a patient-led coalition open to patient groups around the world. She has co-authored several publications, and her list of current advocacy work is extensive, including the “My Migraine Voice Global Survey,” “Migraine at Work,” and the “Migraine Matters” project.
Dr. Tine Poole is an internationally recognized expert on migraine and other headache disorders. She is an acknowledged pioneer in the multi-disciplined treatment of migraine patients. Dr. Poole is a general practitioner from Norway, and started the country’s first headache clinic in 1998, the Migraine Clinic, which became a multidisciplinary center involving 40 health care providers. Dr. Poole’s goal is to provide better understanding of migraine and headache for patients, their families and healthcare providers.
She has been a TV doctor on the national channel NRK, published the book, Migrene, and has lectured tirelessly for more than 20 years. Dr. Poole is a passionate advocate for headache patients and founded the Norwegain headache association “Headache Norway,” where she is a leading member of the board, as well as of the medical faculty.
Dr. Armand is an assistant professor of neurology at Montefiore Medical Center, the university hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is also the fellowship director at the Montefiore Headache Center. She is the co-chair of the American Headache Society’s (AHS) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Taskforce, and serves as vice president of the Society of Haitian Neuroscientists. She is the current web editor at JAMA Neurology and the host of the JAMA Neurology Author Interviews podcast. Dr. Armand was named an Emerging Leader in Headache Medicine by the AHS in 2018. She is also a recent graduate of the American Academy of Neurology’s 2020 Diversity Leadership Program. Dr. Armand is an avid lover of neurology and health news with a strong interest in patient education, as well as social media as a valuable means of patient empowerment and knowledge.
Interviews from Cynthia Armand, MD
Chronic Disease on Social Media: Helpful or Harmful?
Food and Nutrition For Migraine
Dr. Schim is board certified in neurology, and has certification in headache medicine by the United Council of Neurologic Subspecialties. Dr. Schim has been chair of the division of neuroscience at Scripps Hospital, Encinitas, and medical director of the stroke program at Tri-City Medical Center. He is a past president of the Association of California Neurologists and an active member of the American Academy of Neurology, American Stroke Association and American Headache Society. He is a board member and the immediate past president of the Headache Consortium of the Pacific, chairperson and director of the California Chapter, Alliance for Patient Access, and a board member and past president of the American Heart Association, San Diego.
He has published articles in Experimental Neurology, Current Medical Research and Opinion, Pain Practice, Headache, and Neurology. He has been a clinical investigator in multiple clinical trials and he has been a speaker and consultant on the topic of headache and migraine. Currently he is a partner in The Neurology Center, in Encinitas, California, and is co-director of the Headache Center of Southern California. He enjoys travel, and is an avid photographer and surfer.
Rami Burstein is a professor of anaesthesia and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, vice chairman of research in the department of anesthesia and critical care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and academic director of the Harvard Medical Faculty Physician Comprehensive Headache Center. Dr. Burstein is an NIH-funded translational researcher who works on the pathophysiology of neural pathways that underlie migraine pain. These neural pathways include networks of neurons that carry pain signals from peripheral structures to the spinal cord and from there, to brain areas that regulate pain perception, sensitivity to light, mood, appetite, hormonal secretion, autonomic reflexes, and sleep.
Interviews from Rami Burstein, PhD
The Science of Light Sensitivity and How to Manage It
Dr. Rebecca Erwin Wells is a professor of neurology and social sciences and health policy, with tenure at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem, NC. In 2012, she founded their Comprehensive Headache Program, which she has continued to direct. She graduated with highest honors on a full academic scholarship from UNC-Chapel Hill, received her MD from East Carolina-Brody School of Medicine, completed a neurology residency at University of Virginia, and obtained her Master of Public Health (MPH) from Harvard University. She also completed fellowships in integrative medicine and headache medicine from Harvard.
Dr. Wells currently serves as immediate past president of the Southern Headache Society. She is on the board of directors of the American Headache Society (AHS), and is a fellow of the AHS and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). She received the AHS’s Above and Beyond Award for her service as co-chair of the AHS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Task Force. She received the AHS Early Career Lecture Award for her research on the patient voice in migraine and the AAN’s Harold Wolff-John Graham Award for recognition of her outstanding achievements in headache/facial pain research. Her National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research investigates the mechanisms and efficacy of mind/body treatments for headache, which often receives media attention, including interviews with Time magazine, NPR, BBC News, The Boston Globe, and Prevention magazine.
She also conducts research evaluating the genetics of cluster headache, and presents to national and international audiences as an expert in headache, mind/body, and integrative medicine. She has received funding from the NIH, the National Headache Foundation, and the American Pain Society for her research. As a trained mindfulness meditation instructor, she led mindfulness sessions virtually with worldwide participants during the pandemic.
Dr. Robbins earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and his MD from SUNY-Downstate College of Medicine. He completed his neurology residency, chief residency, and headache fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore. He served on the faculty at Montefiore-Einstein for nearly a decade in roles including chief of neurology at the Jack D. Weiler Hospital and director of inpatient services for the Montefiore Headache Center. He joined Weill Cornell in 2018, where he is the neurology residency program director, the Louis and Rachel Rudin Foundation Education Scholar, and an associate professor of neurology.
Dr. Robbins is the president-elect of the American Headache Society (AHS) and codirects the AHS Resident Education Program. He is the president of the New York State Neurological Society. He has served on the editorial boards of multiple neurology journals, including Continuum and Headache, and has won teaching awards from the American Academy of Neurology, AHS, National Headache Foundation, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Weill Cornell. He recently was awarded the AHS Seymour Solomon Lecture Award for his career achievements in headache education.
He has led organizational initiatives related to headache, including guidelines, consensus statements, and quality measures. He is active in advocacy activities, including the Palatucci Advocacy Leadership Forum, serving multiple times as an adviser and faculty member.
Lisa Jacobson is the founder of The Daily Migraine, and a lifetime migraine sufferer who’s on an unrelenting search to find a cure. In the meantime, her engaging memes give people who don’t get migraines a glimpse into what life is like for those of us who do. Lisa is also Founder and CEO of an academic tutoring company, and serves on the board of the American Migraine Foundation.
Dr. Brian Grosberg is the director of the Hartford HealthCare Headache Center and a professor of neurology at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He is a board-certified neurologist and headache specialist who has been awarded Clinical Headache Fellowship Award from the American Headache Society and the Members Choice Award for the Best Paper Published in Headache in 2014. While Dr. Grosberg has extensive experience with clinical trials research, another primary academic area of interest is headache-related education. Accordingly, he has either authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, invited reviews, textbooks, book chapters and abstracts.
Dr. Grosberg has delivered more than 150 invited lectures locally, nationally and internationally. Over more than a decade, Dr. Grosberg has trained many future physician leaders in the field of headache medicine.
Paul R. Martin is an adjunct professor at Monash University and at Griffith University in Australia. He is a clinical and health psychologist who completed his training at the Universities of Bristol and Oxford. He has held a number of professional leadership positions, including national president of the Australian Behaviour Modification Association, and director of science and then president of the Australian Psychological Society.
His main research interest has been headache and migraine, with subsidiary interests in stress, depression (including postnatal depression), and social support. He has authored/edited eight books and 170 journal articles and chapters. In 2003, he received a Centenary Medal “for service to Australian society and medicine,” and in 2015, he received a Medal of the Order of Australia “for service to medicine in the field of psychology.”
Dr. Lars Jacob Stovner is someone that us been advocating on our behalf for decades through his work with the World Health Organisation and many other prestigious commissions such as Director of the international NGO “Lifting the Burden: The global campaign against headache”. He was also a partner in the EU project “Eurolight” from 2006 to 2010. Currently he is the Professor of Neurology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the Head of the Norwegian National Headache Centre.
He has also been the President of the Norwegian Migraine Society, Co-editor of The Journal of Headache and Pain and Faculty member of the European Brain Council. It is difficult to overstate our guest’s contribution to the field of headache and migraine. He has 236 scientific publications registered in PubMed, 23 Book chapters and has been cited over 16,000 times.
