Coriene Catsman-Berrevoets

Coriene Catsman-Berrevoets is a Paediatric Neurologist. She is working at the ErasmusMC / Sophia Children’s Hospital. She was head of department of Paediatric Neurology until December 2020 when she stepped down from management functions to be able to concentrate again on patient care and research.  She has a wide interest in paediatric neurological topics but neuro-oncology and especially the neurocognitive sequelae of brain tumour treatment has always been her field of choice. Her first of many publication on the Cerebellar Mutism Syndrome dates from 1992.  She had or has multiple leadership positions: She served in the board of the Dutch Society of Paediatric Neurology from 1995 and from 2004-2010 as President. She was board member of the Posterior Fossa Society from  2014 and Chair of this Society from 2016-2018.  She has been an elected board member of the European Paediatric Neurology Society 2004 and Chair of the EPNS Education and Training Committee  since 2014. Since 2014 she is Chair of the Committee of National advisors to EPNS and the Training Advisory Board. In this role she took the lead in revision of the European training syllabus for paediatric neurologists and visited national training programmes in Spain and Georgia. Also she was responsible for the organization of multiple EPNS international training events in Budapest, Alicante, Cambridge, Tblisi, Astana and Tashkent. She was member of the organising Committee of the International Child Neurology Congress in Amsterdam in 2016,. She is member of the advisory boards of the Dutch Neurofibromatosis Society and the Society of patients with Sturge Weber Syndrome and member of various Dutch multidisciplinary professional networks that support  organisations of patients with Acquired Brain Injury.

Thora Gudrunardottir

A native of Iceland, Dr. Gudrunardottir studied medicine in Copenhagen, Denmark. She started researching cerebellar mutism already as a medical student, and is the primary author of the protocol for the Nordic/European Study of Cerebellar Mutism Syndrome in Children with Brain Tumours of the Posterior Fossa that currently runs in 20 centers across Europe and Scandinavia. She took the initiative to forming the Posterior Fossa Society in 2014, was the society’s first president from 2014-2016, hosted its two consensus meetings in Reykjavik in 2015 and 2018 and drove the Delphi procedures by which a new definition of “pediatric post-operative cerebellar mutism syndrome” was formed in 2016. Dr. Gudrunardottir divides her time between working as a GP and emergency physician in rural Norway and doing research in Copenhagen, where her main focus is currently on doctors’ health. If she has not responded to your query yet she is probably out fishing.

Helen Hartley

Helen is a Highly Specialist Paediatric Physiotherapist based at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and has been the lead physiotherapist for neurosurgery/oncology since 2006.

Helen completed a MSc in Neuromusculoskeletal Healthcare in 2013 and has demonstrated a keen commitment to ongoing professional development with further post graduate courses in Acupuncture, Kinesiology taping and Spinal Cord Injury Management. Helen has contributed to guidelines on SCI management and developed a screening protocol for children with Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy.

Helen has a particular clinical and research interest in rehabilitation following diagnosis of brain tumour, and has been the Chief Investigator on a trial exploring the use of outcome measures in children with brain tumours and has spoken at local and national conferences on ataxia in children with posterior fossa tumours.

Helen is a member of the AACP, APCP and National Paediatric Physiotherapy Oncology and Acquired Brain Injury Groups. She has organised National Study days and National Network Meetings along with numerous local study events. 

Andrew Lux

Andrew Lux a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, Bristol, UK. He has special responsibilities within his department for the management of epilepsy, fetal neurological abnormalities, and neuro-oncology. He graduated from Nottingham University Medical School in 1987 and trained in General Practice in Kingston-upon-Hull before undertaking paediatric training there and in Cardiff, Wales. He worked as a General Paediatrician in St Lucia, West Indies for 3 years before returning to the UK to train in Paediatric Neurology in Bristol. He spent a year as a Fellow in Pediatric Epilepsy and Clinical Neurophysiology at St Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University in St Louis. He completed an MSc in Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and a PhD at the University of Bath, where he presented a thesis on The Epidemiology and Treatment of Infantile Spasms. That work included research findings from the West Delphi Consensus on Case Definitions and Outcome Measures for Infantile Spasms (Epilepsia, 2004) and the initial trial findings from the United Kingdom Infantile Spasms Study (Lancet, 2004). He later completed an MBA at The Open University, where he did a case study on Improving Systems and Processes on the Paediatric Epilepsy Services Programme. He has been an editorial board member of the journals Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, Epileptic Disorders, and the European Journal of Paediatric Neurology. He has been a member of the Posterior Fossa Society since 2014. 

Barry Pizer

Barry is a Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at Alder Hey and Honorary Professorship at the University of Liverpool. He has a particular interest in Central Nervous System tumours and supportive care in children and young people. Barry has had a prominent place in the UK Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG) and the International Society of Paediatric Oncology-Europe (SIOPE) and is a previous chair of both the CCLG and SIOPE  brain tumour groups.He has been Chief Investigator and had additional lead roles in several national and international clinical trials and in the production of several national guidelines for brain tumours and information guides for families of children with cancer.   He has been an  author on over 190 papers and book chapters.Barry was previously co-Director of research at Alder Hey and leads an expanding Liverpool based clinical and translational research programme. Barry is also strongly committed to International Child Heath.  In particular, he has developed strong links with the children’s cancer unit at Kanti Children’s Hospital, Kathmandu as well as several other overseas initiatives.  In 1997 he formed and Co-Chaired the CCLG Paediatric Oncology in Developing Countries Group.  In 2018 he became the first Director of the Alder Hey International Child Heath Group.

Darcy Raches

Darcy Raches Ph.D. is a pediatric neuropsychologist in the Section of Neuropsychology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. She provides neuropsychological assessment and consultation for children with hematological and oncological diagnoses and associated genetic predisposition syndromes, such as neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). Additionally, Dr. Raches is the lead neuropsychologist to the Acute Neurological Injury team, an interdisciplinary group of rehabilitation professionals and other medical providers at St. Jude. In this capacity she provides brief assessments, tracks cognitive progress and provides cognitive rehabilitation for children who have experienced an acute neurological injury related to their hematological/oncological diagnosis and/or treatment, particularly posterior fossa syndrome and stroke. Dr. Raches is actively involved in the education and mentorship of pre- and post-doctoral students at St. Jude and other institutions.  She is an active clinical researcher with a focus on the cognitive effects of cancer and cancer directed treatments and a special interest in posterior fossa syndrome/post-operative pediatric cerebellar mutism syndrome.

Giles Robinson

Giles W. Robinson, M.D., is a pediatric neuro-oncologist currently practicing at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. His primary career objective is to improve the survival and reduce the treatment-related morbidity of children with central nervous system tumors.

He believes that the best way to achieve this goal is to fundamentally understand these complex and challenging diseases. Thus, he seeks to explore and comprehend the genomic and molecular basis of central nervous system tumors and use this knowledge to better inform therapy.

While he treats all pediatric brain tumors, a focus of his research efforts has been on medulloblastoma. In particular, he has studied and published on the genomics of this tumor. As co-PI of a multi-institutional protocol “A Clinical and Molecular Risk-Directed Therapy for Newly Diagnosed Medulloblastoma (NCT01878617)” he has developed, launched, and operated the first clinical trial to tailor therapy according to the molecular makeup of the tumor.Recently, he launched a multi-armed clinical trial for recurrent or relapsed CNS tumors that targets pathways that are commonly aberrated in these tumors (SJDAWN; NCT03434262). These endeavors would not have been possible without extensive collaborations and he looks forward to new and continued projects as there is much more knowledge to be gained and applied. As such, he is proud of his ability to work with and learn from others as a path is forged toward better therapy for children with cancer.

Jeff Wisoff

Jeffrey H. Wisoff, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at the New York University School of Medicine and served as Director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at New York University Langone Medical Center from 1996-2018.  During the past 30 years he has made major innovative contributions to the surgical treatment of neurological disorders in children and congenital problems in adults, in particular to the treatment of brain tumors, Chiari malformations, hydrocephalus and craniosynostosis.  He has published over 250 scientific articles, abstracts, and book chapters. Dr Wisoff is the past Co-Chairman of the Neurosurgery Committee and a senior member of the Brain Tumor Strategy Committee of the national Children’s Oncology Group.  He is the past Chairman of the Joint Section of Pediatric Neurosurgery of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and currently serves on the Executive Board of the Posterior Fossa Society.  He is a member of the American Society of Pediatric Neurosurgery and the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery.  He has served on the medical advisory board of several national and international scientific and charitable organisations and has on the editorial board of a number of distinguished journals. Dr Wisoff has numerous honors in respect to his contribution to neurosurgery and  highly sought as an invited speaker throughout North America and worldwide. 

PFS Global Meeting is supported by: