CHICAGO - Manisha N. Patel, PhD, has been installed as First Vice President of the American Epilepsy Society (AES), a medical and scientific professional society with 4,500 members. Dr. Patel’s term started at the end of the society’s annual meeting, held in Chicago December 3-7, 2021. She will serve in the society’s presidential line and begin her term as president in 2023.
For nearly 20 years, Dr. Patel has directed an NIH grant-funded research program at University of Colorado/Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (1999-present). She is a Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Her laboratory seeks to understand the redox and metabolic basis of epilepsy and develop metabolism-based therapies for the treatment of epilepsy. She has authored more than 100 scientific publications including articles in Neuron, the Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Patel currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Board and as chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force, which recently became a standing committee. She completed her tenure as a member of the AES Board of Directors in December 2020. Dr. Patel served on the AES Task Force on Gender Diversity and has served on a wide range of committees and taskforces with AES, including as chair of the Scientific Program Committee, Basic Sciences Committee, co-chair of the Research and Training Council, and the Funding Success task Force; and as member of the ILAE/AES Joint Translational Task Force, Translational Research Committee, and Investigator Workshop Committee, and as a contributing editor to Epilepsy Currents.
Dr. Patel is a recipient of the CURE Epilepsy Innovator Award, Shell Prize for Research and Graduate Education, and the AES Distinguished Service Award. Dr. Patel received her PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Purdue University and conducted postdoctoral training in neuroscience at Duke University School of Medicine.