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  1. Education
  2. Residencies
  3. Child Neurology Residency
  4. Program Overview

Research Program

Our mission is to facilitate and nurture mentorship for every resident so that each can meaningfully participate in an individually tailored project in basic or clinical research, medication education, or community engagement during their training. Residents are supported to complete these projects during their training, beginning with a dedicated 8-week research block during the PGY-3 year. Faculty leaders in Clinical Research provide longitudinal support to help guide selection of mentors and projects and facilitate continued progress throughout training. Residents are encouraged to prepare their projects for presentation at national meetings and publication in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, our Division is committed to hosting and supporting junior faculty who have received research career development awards such as K awards and post-doctoral funding from the Department of Pediatrics.

Child neurology residents are eligible to apply for the Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Neuropathology Pittsburgh Research Education Program (N3-PREP), an NIH NINDS UE5 Research Education Grant. For more information, please consult the N3-PREP website: https://www.neurology.pitt.edu/news/n3-prep-train-next-generation-physician-scientists

Residents’ Research Advisory Committee: 

Dana Cummings, MD, PhD
Yoshimi Sogawa, MD, MS
Laura Kirkpatrick, MD

Recent Resident Publications

Patel H, Alkalbani L, Harford E, Sutcliffe M, Laughlin SF, Vasudevan G, Benjamin N, Speakes M, Schaefer K, Abel T, Fernandez L, Cobb Pitstick K, Ortolani E, Welch W, Al Ramadhani R. Seizure outcomes of sEEG guided surgery for temporal vs. extratemporal epilepsy in children. Epilepsy Behav. 2026 May;182:111129.

Rigby KL, Jain R, Gozlan EC, Kacsoh D, Singh T, Chobrutskiy A, Chobrutskiy BI, Blanck G. Chemical complementarities of neuroblastoma tumor resident TCR CDR3s and CMV antigens are associated with a better outcome. Biochem Genet. 2026.

Dave AM, Fukahori K, Mack M, McNamara C. Acute Flaccid Paralysis. Pediatr Rev. 2026;47(3):139-148.

Speakes ME, Reznik-Schaefer K, Al-Ramadhani R, Fernandez LD, Hect JL, Abel TJ, Welch WP, Harford E. Treatment of pediatric drug resistant generalized epilepsy with responsive neurostimulation of the centromedian nucleus of the thalamus: A case series of seven patients. Epilepsy Res. 2025;210:107516.

Tran KT, Virga J, Kurdi N, Chalupa KA, Szűcs B, Klekner Á, Mokanszki A, Bedekovics J. Metastatic Supratentorial Ependymoma: A Case Presentation and Systematic Review of the Literature. Neuropathology. 2025;45(4):e70024.

Kacsoh DB, Ayoub MC, Cejas D, Guez Barber D, Holler-Managan Y, Kim YM, Shear T, Kim J, Kitsis S, Christy E, Christy A. Depictions of Pediatric Neurologic Disability in Graphic Novels. J Child Neurol. 2025;40(9):772-773.

Deepa S Rajan, Brandon Richter, Krrithvi Dharini Ganes. Adrenoleukodystrophy. In: Lewis SL, Editor-in-Chief. MedLink Neurology. San Diego: MedLink, LLC. Available at www.medlink.com. Updated: April 20, 2025.

Vasudevan G, Filipink R, Gaesser J, Kazmerski TM, Sogawa Y, Kirkpatrick L. Preferences and Experiences of Parents/Guardians of Adolescents and Young Adults with Epilepsy and Intellectual Disability Regarding Decision-Making Surrounding Contraception. Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2025 May 25:S1083-3188(25)00270-0.

Patel H, Malave R, Bitting S, Weir K, Naus T, Shelton L, Harris KW, Kerr WT, Van Cott AC, Kirkpatrick L. Youth and Family Perspectives on Diagnosis Communication About Pediatric Functional Seizures: A Qualitative Study. Pediatr Neurol. 2024;161:91-98.

Ahmed F, Ali HA, Musa A, Fawzi M, Benini R. Determinants of quality of life in pediatric epilepsy: A study from a single tertiary center. Epilepsy Behav. 2026;174:110807.

Vasudevan G, Filipink R, Gaesser J, Kazmerski TM, Sogawa Y, Kirkpatrick L. Preferences and experiences of parents/guardians youth with epilepsy and intellectual disability on reproductive health counseling. Epilepsy Behav. 2024;152:109658.

Morrison K, Koshiya H, Safier R, Brown A, May C, Vockley C, Ghaloul-Gonzalez L. Clinical case report of intractable paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity in TANGO2 deficiency disorder. Am J Med Genet. 2024;e63633.

Harrison EI, Kirkpatrick L, Harrison P, Kazmerski TM, Sogawa Y, Hochheiser HS. Use of natural language processing to identify sexual and reproductive health information in clinical text. Methods Inf Med. 2023;62:193-201.

Kirkpatrick L, Terman SW, Harrison EI, Pennell PB. Lamotrigine and exogenous estrogen among females with epilepsy: a retrospective analysis of administrative claims data. Epilepsy Behav. 2023;149:109514.

Harrison EI, Kirkpatrick L, Hochheiser HS, Sogawa Y, Kazmerski TM. A retrospective textual analysis of sexual and reproductive health counseling for adolescent and young adult people with epilepsy of gestational capacity. Epilepsy Behav. 2023;145:109321.

Parulekar M, Kazmerski TM, Gordon DM, Syed T, Waters JFR, Van Cott AC, Kirkpatrick L. Co-production of online educational resources for adolescent and young adult females with epilepsy. Epilepsy Behav. 2023;147:109420.

VanZant JS, Vellody K. Financial impact of a specialized Down syndrome clinic: implications and support for institutional support of specialty care clinics. Am J Med Genet A. 2023;191:770-775.

Gordon DM, Thakkar K. Serial neurologic examination in a child with acute flaccid weakness. Clin Pediatr. 2023;62:180-183.

Kirkpatrick L, Harrison EI, Borrero S, Davis AR, Miller E, Sogawa Y, Stransky OM, Talabi MB, Urban A, Van Cott AC, Kazmerski TM. Preferences and experiences of women with epilepsy regarding sexual and reproductive healthcare provision. Epilepsy Behav. 2022;129:108631.

Kirkpatrick L, Collins A, Harrison EI, Miller E, Patterson C, Sogawa Y, Van Cott AC, Kazmerski TM. Pediatric neurologists’ perspectives on sexual and reproductive healthcare for adolescent and young adult women with epilepsy and intellectual disability. J Child Neurol. 2022;37:56-63.

Kirkpatrick L, Liu H, Bhatnagar S, Bravender T, Harrison EI, Kazmerski TM, Sogawa Y, Syed T, Shope TR. A survey of healthcare providers about reproductive healthcare for adolescent and young adult women with epilepsy. J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2022;35:39-47.

Kirkpatrick L, Harrison EI, Borrero S, Miller E, Sogawa Y, Stransky OM, Talabi MB, Urban A, Kazmerski TM. Sexual and reproductive health concerns of women with epilepsy beginning in adolescen and young adulthood. Epilepsy Behav. 2021;125:108439.

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Faculty Research

Opportunities for research within the Division of Child Neurology include projects in epilepsy, headache, inflammatory nervous symptom disease, metabolism, neuro-genetics, neuroimaging, neuromuscular disorders, childhood stroke, and basic science, as well as projects from other affiliated departments at the University of Pittsburgh.
Epilepsy
  • Expanded access study on the effect of pharmaceutical grade Cannabidiol (CBD) in children with intractable epilepsy (Sogawa)
  • Neural plasticity and recovery of visual functions in patients with hemispherectomy (Patterson)
  • Established Status Epilepticus Treatment Trial (Sogawa)
  • Prospective observational study of epileptic encephalopathy (Sogawa)
  • A study on the impact of early genetic testing in infantile onset epilepsy (Sogawa)
  • Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium (PERC). (Sogawa, Patterson, Rajan)
Neuromuscular
  • A Phase 1 Trial to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability, and Pharmacokinetics of a Single Dose of SRP-5051 in Patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Amenable to Exon 51 Skipping Treatment. (Abdel-Hamid)
  • An Open-Label Extension Study for Patients with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Who Participated in Studies of SRP-5051 (Abdel-Hamid)
  • An Open-Label, Safety Study for Previously Treated Ataluren (PTC124) Patients with Nonsense Mutation Dystrophinopathy (Abdel-Hamid)
  • An Open-Label, Multi-Center, 48-Week Study with a Concurrent Untreated Control Arm to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Eteplirsen in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (Abdel-Hamid)
  • A 48-Week, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Multi-Center Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of SRP-4045 and SRP-4053 in Patients with DMD (Abdel-Hamid)
Neurogenetics
  • Neurogenetics Program Patient Registry: Clinical and Genetic Diagnosis, Natural History Study, Translational Research and Biorepository (Rajan)
  • Functional characterization of GEMIN5 - Establishing an gene discovery pipeline from variants of unknown significance on next generation sequencing (Rajan, Pandey)
Neurodevelopment
  • Effects of AFQ056 on Language Learning in Young Children with Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) (Filipink)
  • Fragile X Clinical and Research Consortium (FXCRC) Registry (FORWARD)
  • Diffusion Tensor Imaging Analysis of Prenatal Cannabinoid Exposure (Franks)
Neuroimmunology
  • Acute Demyelinating Disorders of Childhood (ADEM) (Alper)
  • Acute brain stem clinical and radiological syndromes in children (Thakkar)
  • Neuropsychological outcomes in immune mediated brain disorders (Thakkar)
Stroke and Headache
  • Regional Coordinating Stroke Center of Stroke Trials Network (NINDS) (Cummings)
Basic Science
  • Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of FUS-related neurodegeneration (Pandey)
  • Molecular Basis of FUS/TLS-related amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Pandey)
  • Molecular library screen for suppressors of FUS proteinopathy (Pandey)
  • A Drosophila model to investigate the role of FUS in ALS (Pandey)
  • Role of RAN peptides in polyQ-independent toxicity in a new C. elegans model for Huntington’s disease (Lamitina)
  • Characterization of modifiers of C9orf72-associated dipeptide toxicity in a new C. elegans model (Lamitina)
  • Functional neurologic consequences of in utero cannabinoid exposure (Franks)
  • Novel corticosteroid treatment of perinatal pathology to improve neurodevelopmental outcomes (Franks)
  • Viral immunotherapy to eradicate subclinical brain metastases (Bergman)

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Academic Resources

Residents have access to multiple institutions and centers through the University of Pittsburgh to support development and execution of independent scholarly projects.

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