David Burkholder, MD, and Elaine Wirrell, MD

The Guest Editors of this issue of Seminars in Neurology are Drs. David Burkholder and Elaine Wirrell.

Dr. David Burkholder is Chair of the Division of Epilepsy and Assistant Professor of Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He is also Program Director of the Clinical Neurophysiology fellowships in Rochester. He serves on the Departmental and Enterprise Education Committees, the Mayo Clinic Historical Committee, and the Resident Curriculum Committee. He was trained in Neurology at the Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, where he was also Chief Resident. He then did a fellowship in Neurophysiology EEG/Epilepsy, also at Mayo Clinic. He is a renowned educator within the field of neurology and epilepsy, and an avid mentor to junior people in our field. His is a principal investigator or co-investigator in several active trials in epilepsy, and is clearly an emerging leader in neurology!

Dr. Wirrell completed her medical school at the University of British Columbia, followed by a residency in Child Neurology at Dalhousie University in Canada. She is currently Professor and Chair of Child Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

She has been integrally involved with the International Child Neurology Society for many years, serving as an ICNA Executive Board Member since 2018, as Chair of the ICNA Research Committee from 2018 to 2022, and is currently Co-Chair of the Bylaws and Constitution Committee. She served on the core Scientific Committee of the 2022 ICNC meeting in Antalya, Turkey and is Deputy Chair of the 2024 ICNC in Cape Town, South Africa. Dr. Wirrell was the former Co-Chair of the Nosology and Definitions Task Force of the ILAE, and is currently serving on both the Pediatrics and Surgical Therapies Commissions and the Terminology and the SNOMED Task Forces. She Co-Chairs the Pediatric Medical Therapies Task Force. She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Epilepsy.com, the public education Web site for the Epilepsy Foundation of America. Dr. Wirrell has a keen interest in neurology education and served as the Vice-Chair of the Neurology Examination Committee of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada from 2009 to 2014. She served as the Program Director of the Child and Adolescent Neurology Residency at Mayo Clinic from 2016 to 2024 and served as Co-Chair of the Pellock Epilepsy Symposium, an educational program offered to all North American final year Child Neurology trainees through the Child Neurology Society, from 2016 to 2023. Her research interests include optimizing care for children with developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, epidemiology, and comorbidities of pediatric epilepsy, and she has published over 270 peer-reviewed articles and numerous book chapters. She has been the recipient of several awards including the AES Kiffin Penry Award for Excellence in Epilepsy Care and the Mayo Clinic Distinguished Clinician Award.

We greatly appreciate the efforts of Drs. Burkholder and Wirrell, as well as all of the contributing authors, for their tremendous contributions in this issue of Seminars. The reviews are timely, up-to-date, concise, and highly informative, and this is sure to become a “staple” issue for all of our readers! I would like to personally thank Drs. Burkholder and Wirrell for their commitment to making this a superb issue. We hope you enjoy it!

Publication History

Article published online:
08 May 2025