Associate Professor Andrew Neal, MBBS, BMedSci, FRACP, PhD is a consultant neurologist, epileptologist and clinical research fellow. He is the Director of Epilepsy at Alfred Health. Andrew has current clinical appointments at Alfred Hospital, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne (SVHM) and Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH). He is an Associate Professor of Epileptology within the Department of Neuroscience, School of Translational Medicine, Monash University. Additionally, Andrew is a honorary research fellow of Melbourne University. Andrew completed neurology training and an epilepsy fellowship at RMH/SVHM.

He completed a PhD (RMH/Melbourne University) in 2018 examining clinical and molecular factors associated with tumour associated epilepsy. During his PhD, Andrew designed and commenced two multi-centre, international phase II RCTs which examine targeted treatment for glioma associated epilepsy (PEGASUS). He is the chief investigator of these trials.

In 2018 Andrew completed a 12 month stereo-EEG fellowship in Lyon, France where he gained expertise in SEEG and quantitative techniques for SEEG signal analysis. He is now leading the SEEG program at Alfred Health and founded a multi-site SEEG Clinical-research program. Andrew is currently supervising PhD candidates, Honours students and junior doctors undertaking SEEG and epilepsy surgery based projects.

His major research interests are brain tumour associated epilepsy, stereo electro-encephalography and epilepsy surgery.

He has established an innovative research program utilising intracranial SEEG data to understand the role of epileptic and cognitive networks in the pathophysiology of drug-resistant epilepsy and its associated neuropsychological deficits. He also has a research interest, and significant publications, in tumour-associated epilepsy, a form of epilepsy that is commonly drug resistant.

Andrew has acted as the main supervisor for 4 PhD students and co-supervised 3 PhD students. He has also supervised 2 Masters of Research students.

A/Prof Neal has currently peer-reviewed over 30 academic manuscripts including publications in Q1 journals such as the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry and Epilepsia. He has also acted as a peer review for NHMRC EL1/2 Investigator Grants between 2022-2023.

Locally, A/Prof Neal is a member of the ESA EEG sub-committee and has previously contributed to the Human Intracerebral EEG Platform (HIP) Project, ‘Australian SEEG Collaborative’, Victoria Intracranial EEG & Clinical Epilepsy meeting and Australasian SEEG Training Course.