Jennifer Gelinas, MD, PHD

Jennifer Gelinas, MD, PhD is an assistant professor of neurology (in the Institute for Genomic Medicine and the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center) at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Gelinas obtained her medical doctorate and doctorate degrees at the University of Alberta, Canada. She subsequently completed pediatric neurology residency at the University of British Columbia, followed by an epilepsy fellowship at New York University Langone Medical Center. Dr. Gelinas' clinical practice focuses on infantile and childhood epilepsy, with a special interest in epilepsy surgery and intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG).
In her doctoral research, Dr. Gelinas studied cellular mechanisms of learning and memory in the hippocampus. Her postdoctoral fellowship was with Dr. Gyorgy Buzsaki at New York University Langone Medical Center, investigating the effects of epileptic activity on neural networks involved in cognition, as well as advanced neural interface devices for the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. In her current research, Dr. Gelinas is focused on understanding how epileptic activity disrupts the proper development and function of neural networks. In vivo neurophysiology with advanced neural interface devices, behavioral memory tasks, responsive stimulation of neural networks, and neurocomputational methods are among the techniques used in her laboratory to investigate neural network dysfunction in epilepsy. The overall goal of her research is to identify novel biomarkers and systems level treatments for epileptic disorders, especially those affecting neonates and children.