6th Annual Pediatric
Neuroscience Conference
&
3rd GCC Pediatric
Neurology Conference

Dr. Ruba Benini

Dr. Ruba Benini is a Pediatric Neurologist and Epileptologist, currently serving as Medical Director of the Neurodiagnostic Laboratory and Program Director of the Pediatric Neurology Fellowship at Sidra Medicine. She is also an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar.

Dr. Benini is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada (FRCPC). She earned her PhD in Neuroscience from the Montreal Neurological Institute in 2006 and her medical degree from McGill University in 2008. She completed her pediatric neurology residency at McGill University Health Center in 2014 and a fellowship in Pediatric Epilepsy at Ste. Justine Hospital in 2016.

Before joining Sidra Medicine in 2017, Dr. Benini practiced at Montreal Children's Hospital and King Fahad Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Her research focuses on the genetics of pediatric epilepsy, aiming to improve diagnosis and treatment outcomes for affected children.

Dr. Mahmoud Fawzi Osman

Dr. Mahmoud Fawzi is a senior attending physician in pediatric neurology at Sidra Medicine and Hamad Hospital. He also serves as an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar. Previously, Dr. Mahmoud worked as a consultant in pediatric neurology at Hamad Hospital from 2006 until 2017. He then joined Sidra Medicine as a senior attending physician in pediatric neurology. He specializes in treating patients with muscle disease, multiple sclerosis, and tuberous sclerosis. He got research grants in congenital brain anomalies and muscle diseases, hereditary spastic paraplegia and microcephaly, and spinal muscular atrophy. He is widely published and has lectured at local and international conferences. Dr. Fawzi has extensive experience in pediatric neurology since 1995. He has more than 50 publications in international journals.

Dr. Khalid Ibrahim

Dr. Khalid Omer Ibrahim, CCST, MD, FRCP, FRCPCH, MBBS, MRCP, is a Senior Attending Pediatric Neurologist at Sidra Medicine and Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. Before joining Sidra Medicine, Dr. Ibrahim served as the Chief of the Pediatric Neurology Division at Hamad Hospital. He was also the former Pediatric Neurology Fellowship Program Director at Hamad Hospital. Former Clinical Lead for Epilepsy Service in North London, UK. Former Member of the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN)

Dr. Farouq Thabet

Dr. Farouq Thabet is an Attending Pediatric Neurologist at Sidra Medicine and an Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. Before joining Sidra. Dr. Thabet worked as a Consultant Pediatric Neurologist at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. He is an adjunct Assistant Professor of Specialty Medicine at Des Moines University in Iowa, USA. He is American Board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American Board of Pediatrics. Dr. Thabet is a member of the American Academy of Neurology and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr. Khalid Al-Kharazi

Dr. Khalid Al-Kharazi is a senior pediatric neurosurgeon at Sidra Medicine with about 25 years of neurosurgical experience. Before joining the medical team in Qatar in 2014, he practiced in Canada, Germany, Jordan, and Yemen. He holds neurosurgery certifications from Canada, Germany, the UK, and Jordan. He completed a clinical fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery at the University of British Columbia (BCCH, Vancouver).

Dr. Al-Kharazi is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and earned the German board certification after training in Berlin. He has pioneered several neurosurgical interventions in Qatar, including minimally invasive craniosynostosis and epilepsy surgeries.

Dr. Al-Kharazi is the director of pediatric neurosurgery fellowship program and is an examiner in the Qatar Board of Medical Specialties (QBMS). Dr. Al-Kharazi also holds an MBA from the University of Manchester, UK. Dr. Al-Kharazi is associate professor at Qatar University and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar.

Dr. Ian Pople

Dr. Ian Pople has served as Chief of Neurosurgery at Sidra Medicine since September 2018. He has led the development of a safe, sustainable emergency neurosurgery service for children in Qatar and established advanced surgical programs in pediatric epilepsy and lower limb spasticity. Before joining Sidra, Dr. Pople was Senior Pediatric Neurosurgeon at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children in the UK, where he led epilepsy surgery and SDR services. He graduated from Sheffield University and completed neurosurgical training in Leeds, London (Great Ormond Street Hospital), and Bristol, followed by a fellowship at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. His clinical interests include complex hydrocephalus, neuro-endoscopy, brain tumors, and tethered spinal cord. Dr. Pople has performed over 180 SDR procedures and more than 2,000 pediatric neurosurgical operations. He has also conducted innovative research on hydrocephalus in premature infants, which he plans to continue in Qatar.

Jenny Sacree

Jenny Sacree. With more than 40 years of neuroscience experience, Jenny is presently the CNL for Movement disorders, rehabilitation medicine, and spines. She has been in Sidra Medicine for 5 years, completing the rest of her neuroscience experience in Bristol, UK. She is passionate about education and teaches neuroscience with the ISPN around the world.

Issam Kadoura

BSN
Clinical Nurse Leader – Neurology and General Pediatric Clinic, Sidra Medicine

Issam Kadoura is a dedicated Clinical Nurse Leader at the Neurology and General Pediatric Clinic at Sidra Medicine, where he has been contributing since 2017. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from Jordan University of Science and Technology, earned between 1999 and 2003.

Issam began his nursing career at Jordan Hospital as a Registered Nurse, where he was promoted to Charge Nurse, serving from 2003 to 2007. In 2007, he joined King Fahad Medical City’s Neuroscience Center ward as a Staff Nurse and was later appointed Charge Nurse of the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit in 2009. His leadership and clinical expertise led to his promotion as Epilepsy Nurse Coordinator from 2012 to 2017. In this role, Issam was instrumental in developing and leading specialized epilepsy care programs, clinical leadership, and multidisciplinary care coordination.

Abdulla Zamzam

Abdulla Zamzam graduated from the pharmacy and biotechnology school from the German University in Cairo in 2008. He obtained his Master’s degree in pharmaceutical chemistry in 2010 from the German university in Cairo and Wurzburg university in Germany. Abdulla attained his post graduate diploma in Clinical pharmacy from Queens University in Belfast in 2013.
Abdulla has been working as a clinical pharmacist for 14 years and specialized in PICU/CICU since 4 years. He has obtained his American Board Pharmacy specialty certification in Critical care in 2025. (BPS, BCCCP.)

Kurt Thompson

Kurt Thompson, BScPT, MRSC is a specialist pediatric physiotherapist at Sidra Medicine in Doha, Qatar. His areas of interest are improving function and wellness in children undergoing treatment for cancer as well as children with neurological disabilities of various congenital or acquired etiologies. He is passionate about quality improvement and implementation of evidence-based practice across various multidisciplinary teams.

Dr. Younes Mokrab

Research

Prof. Younes Mokrab is Principal Investigator, Head of Population Genomics Medicine, and Director of the Neuroscience Research Program at Sidra Medicine. He also holds adjunct academic positions at Weill Cornell Medicine and Qatar University. Prof. Mokrab obtained a BSc in Genetics from the University of Sheffield (2003) and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Prof. Tom Blundell’s lab at the University of Cambridge (2007), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship on modelling ion channelopathies with Prof. Mark Sansom at the University of Oxford (2010). He then moved to the pharmaceutical industry, first at Lonza Biologics in in silico biopharmaceutical engineering and then at Eli Lilly leading early-stage neuropsychiatry drug discovery. Since joining Sidra in 2015, he has helped establish research programs in population and medical genetics, co-founded the Qatar Genome Program Research Consortium, and built collaborations with multiple international consortia. His lab’s expertise spans long-read sequencing, multiomics, data science, and large-scale genome studies. He has co-authored over 60 papers, including in Nature and Cell, and has received numerous grants and awards.

Dr. Husam Kayyali

Chair of PNC2026

Dr. Husam Kayyali is the Chief of the Pediatric Neurology Division at Sidra Medicine. He is also serving as the Director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at Sidra Medicine. Dr. Kayyali is Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in Pediatric Neurology, Clinical Neurophysiology, and Epilepsy. Before joining Sidra Medicine, Dr. Kayyali was an Assistant Professor of Pediatric Neurology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and he co-established the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Missouri. Then he moved to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Saudi Arabia, where he served as the Head of the Pediatric Neurology Section and the Director of the Pediatric Neurology Fellowship Program.

Dr. Robert Keating

Robert Keating, MD  is currently the Senior Vice President of Neuroscience and Behavoiral Medicine as well as the McCullough Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery and Chief of Neurosurgery at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC. Dr. Keating graduated from Georgetown University Medical School in 1983 and subsequently went to New York where he did his training in Neurosurgery at Montefiore/Albert Einstein Medical Centers in the Bronx as well as completeing fellowships in Pediatric Neurosurgery and Craniofacial Surgery there in 1990. Dr Keating returned to Montefiore/Albert Enstein after serving in the Navy and then moved to Washington in 1996 to join the faculty at the Children’s National Medical Center becoming Chief of the of Neurosurgery in 2003 and Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics in 2008.

He has published and presented extensively in the field and is senior editor of “ Atlas of Orbitocranial Surgery” and “Tumors of the Pediatric Nervous System” and recently edited the second edition of Neurosurgical Operative Atlas of Pediatric Neurosurgery, (Thieme publisehed in 2025 as well as “Focused Ultrasound (FUS) in Neurosurgery: Current approaches and new Horizons” to be published in 2026.

He currently maintains a busy practice of pediatric neurosurgery, with an emphasis on tumors, Chiari malformations, craniofacial reconstruction, spinal dysraphism, spasticity and brachial plexus surgery and continues be actively involved with long-standing memberships in the CNS , AANS , ASPN and is currently on the Executive Board of the ISPN.

Prof. Amna Al-Futaisi

Professor Amna Mohammed Al Futaisi is a distinguished leader in the field of pediatric neurology, currently serving as a Professor at the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), and as the assistant dean for research and postgraduate studies. In her clinical capacity, she is a Senior Consultant Pediatric Neurologist at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital.

Her clinical and research interests are centered on:

• Complex epilepsy and neurophysiology
• Neurogenetics and neurometabolic diseases
• Cerebral palsy and neurodevelopmental disorders

Dr. Al-Futaisi’s influence extends across regional and international borders through her extensive leadership roles. She serves as the President of the Oman Pediatric neurology society and vice president of Oman pediatric epilepsy society. Furthermore, she chairs the Pediatric Neurology Fellowship Program of the Arab Board of Medical Specialization, where she shapes the training of the next generation of pediatric neurology specialists.

A researcher and dedicated educator, Dr. Al-Futaisi has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications. She remains a driving force behind collaborative research and multidisciplinary care programs aimed at improving neurological health outcomes for children both in the Middle East and globally.

Dr. Majid Aziz

Dr. Majid Aziz is a pediatric neurologist and epileptologist with expertise in complex epilepsy, epilepsy surgery, and EEG. His other areas of interest are movement disorders, headaches, and stroke. Dr. Aziz received his medical degree from Pakistan and trained in pediatrics and child neurology in the United Kingdom. He then completed a fellowship in movement disorder at Evelina Children’s Hospital, London, and a second fellowship in pediatric epilepsy and EEG at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. He has been working at SKMC, Abu Dhabi, since 2019. Before joining SKMC, he was working as a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist in the Northern Children's Epilepsy Surgery Service at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, UK.

Dr. Ahmed Bamaga

Dr. Ahmed K. Bamaga, MD, FRCPC, ABPN, CSCN (EEG & EMG) is a Consultant in Adult and Pediatric Neuromuscular Medicine and Child Neurology, Associate Professor, and Head of the Pediatric Neurology Unit at King Abdulaziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His clinical and research interests focus on pediatric neuromuscular disorders, including spinal muscular atrophy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, inherited neuropathies, and congenital myopathies. He is actively involved in clinical research, national initiatives, and multidisciplinary care, and has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications in pediatric neurology and neuromuscular medicine. He is also master degree candidate in neuro disability.