Prof. Simona Sacco

Simona Sacco is Professor of Neurology at the University of L’Aquila (L’Aquila, Italy) where she leads the Clinical Neurology research unit. She is the Director of the Neurology and Stroke Unit at the Avezzano hospital and leads an Interhospital Headache Referral Center in the ASL1-Abruzzo. She is the Director of the Neurology Residency Program and a member of the Board of Directors of the Doctoral Course in Clinical and Experimental Medicine at the University of L’Aquila. She has an intense teaching activity and is a supervisor and mentor for several physicians and researchers at different career stages.

She has been serving ESO in activities related to guideline development since 2017. She has co-led the Guidelines Workshop Committee from 2017 to 2020. Since 2020 she has been serving as the co-chair of the Guideline Board. In this role she has made substantial contributions to foster the guideline activity of ESO. This resulted in several guidelines issued in 2021 and others under development for 2022. She has personally contributed as a working group member to the Guideline on the Management of Blood Pressure in Acute Stroke and to the Guideline on Mobile Stroke Units.  Since 2021 she is also a Board member of ESOTA and part of the Board of The Italian Stroke Research network affiliated to ESOTA. She is an active member of the WISE (Women Initiative of Stroke in Europe) group and earlier she was a member of the Young Stroke Physicians Committee. Dr. Sacco was also a representative of ESO in the Stroke panel of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) and was elected to this panel in 2018-2019. She also holds the position of second vice-president of the European Headache Federation (EHF) since 2020 and was treasurer of the Society from 2018 to 2021. She has gained experience in National scientific societies being Board member of the Italian Society of Neurology (SIN), Italian Stroke Association (ISA-AII) and the Italian Headache Society (SISC).

Her major research and clinical interests are in the field of Stroke and Headache. She served as a principal or co-investigator in several projects and has been the recipient of research grants. She has authored more than 200 articles indexed in PubMed plus several book chapters. Dr. Sacco has served as scientific advisor in international and national committees for research funding. She has been invited speaker to many international conferences in the field of Stroke and Headache.

Dr. Sacco is Editorial Board member of the European Stroke Journal, Assistant Editor for Stroke, Editorial Board member for Neurology, Editorial Board member for International Journal of Stroke, section Chief Editor in Headache and Neurogenic Pain for Frontiers of Neurology, Associate Editor for The Journal of Headache and Pain, member of the advisory Board for Neurological Sciences, Associate Editor in Stroke for Frontiers in Neurology. She acts as reviewer for many journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet Neurology, the British Medical Journal, JAMA, Nature Reviews Neurology.