Research Team

Sam is a pediatric neuropsychologist with more than 15 years of experience in guiding children with complex neurological disorders and their families. He is active as a research manager at the Leuven Children's Epilepsy Center, where he helps shape new research lines, innovative projects and clinically oriented research. You can find Sam at both the UZ Leuven and the KU Leuven. Do you have any questions? Feel free to contact him

He reads and interprets video-EEGs, processes images for epilepsy surgery and participates in the multidisciplinary pediatric epilepsy consultation. His research focuses on disease classification, advanced neuroimaging, presurgical evaluation and innovative technologies such as wearables for seizure detection.

Kevin has been part of the Molecular Bio-discovery group since 2021. He maintains the different animal model lines and investigates new candidate medicines using zebrafish and mouse models. Through behavioral tests and brain scans, he helps pave the way toward new treatments for children with epilepsy.

Eva is responsible for the strategic and administrative operations of the Leuven Childhood Epilepsy Center.
She manages schedules, organizes meetings, and monitors project progress.
In addition, she serves as a point of contact for everyone within the center, oversees budgets, and helps define the center’s strategic direction.

Marlies is responsible for the preparation, coordination, and follow-up of clinical trials.
This includes contacting potential participants, organizing study visits, and collecting and managing data in accordance with the study protocol.
In addition, the coordinator ensures compliance with regulations and maintains communication with both participants and research teams.

Dr. Jo Sourbron, MD, PhD, MPharm, is a pharmacist and physician currently specializing further in clinical genetics at Ghent University Hospital (UZ Gent).
He has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven (Belgium) since 2018.

Anna is a civil engineer and PhD student working with the Center for Childhood Epilepsy. Her research focuses on childhood epilepsy, with a specific focus on childhood absence epilepsy.

Lieselot is a clinical and research psychologist by training and is interested in the development and living environment of children and young people. From October 1st 2025 she will combine her clinical work at the Leuven Children's Epilepsy Center with a part-time doctorate.

Jirka has a master's degree in experimental psychology. From a deep fascination for the functioning of the human brain, she wants to make a difference for children with epilepsy with her research. She does this by studying the relationship between psychology and sleep in children with epilepsy, with special attention to executive functioning.

Beate is a medical student with an interest in childhood epilepsy. She combines her medical studies with a student job at the Center for Childhood Epilepsy. She optimizes the Flemish registry for childhood epilepsy and uses the data for exploratory research. She is currently focusing on absence epilepsy and its impact on daily life.

Noa is a psychology student who is writing her master's thesis on the neuropsychological consequences of absence epilepsy.

Machine learning (ML)-based algorithms are considered promising solutions for the clinical assessment of brain recordings (such as EEG).
However, translating these technical advances into clinical implementation requires considerable effort to ensure that the algorithms are generalizable across different patients and hospitals.

Childhood epilepsy can also affect children’s cognitive and neuropsychological development.
To better understand this impact, we collaborate with the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at KU Leuven. In this effort, we draw on the expertise of Prof. Céline Gillebert (Neuropsychology Lab Leuven) and Prof. Hans Op de Beeck (HOPLAB).