Professor Helen Cross

Professor Helen Cross is Chair of our Medical Advisory Board. 

She is the Prince of Wales’s Chair of Childhood Epilepsy at UCL-Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London and Young Epilepsy, Lingfield, and President of the ILAE (International League Against Epilepsy).

Professor Cross was awarded an OBE in 2015 for her services to children with epilepsy. She has been awarded two honorary doctorates, in Tartu and Gothenburg. She has research interests in early onset complex epilepsy, particularly outcomes and the role of intervention, surgery and the ketogenic diet, publishing more than 250 peer reviewed primary research articles and 100 review articles. 

She has edited seven books, including a definitive childhood epilepsy text and a ketogenic diet cookery book, and written more than 40 chapters. 

She has also been Chair of the ILAE Commission for Paediatrics 2005-2009, Co-Chair of the Task Force of the Global Campaign and a member of the ILAE Commission for European Affairs 2009-2013. She was Chair of the ILAE Task Force for Paediatric Epilepsy Surgery 2001-2013, and Secretary General of the ILAE 2013-2017. She was Clinical Advisor to the 2012 NICE Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of the Epilepsies in Adults and Children, and Chair of the Trustees of Epilepsy Research UK 2005-2010. 

She is currently Clinical Advisor to the National Children’s Epilepsy Surgery Service and Topic Advisor to the current update to the NICE guidelines on the epilepsies. She was President of the BPNA 2008-10 and has been instrumental in the establishment of the BPNA Paediatric Epilepsy Training Courses. She is on the Board of Trustees for Young Epilepsy, and President of Epilepsy Research UK.