Dr. Steven Schachter

Dr. Steven Schachter is Chief Academic Officer for CIMIT in Boston and a Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. He is Past President of the American Epilepsy Society and has served on the Epilepsy Foundation of America Board of Directors and as Chair of its Professional Advisory Board. Dr. Schachter has published over 250 articles and chapters and edited or written 40 books, including the Brainstorm Series. He is the founding editor and past editor-in-chief of the medical journals Epilepsy & Behavior and Epilepsy & Behavior Case Reports. He has extensive experience conducting, creating, and managing processes and teams that facilitate translational research and commercialization of medical technologies and the diagnosis and treatment of patients with neurological disorders, in particular epilepsy, coupled with advocacy for patients and their families. He is an expert in botanical medicine and discovered a plant-derived compound that is now in Phase II clinical trials for the treatment of epilepsy. His current focus is accelerating medical technologies from the bench to commercialization by engaging stakeholders, including government agencies and industry leaders. These efforts have included overseeing large, multi-project initiatives. He organized and directed the extramural activities of a multi-billion-dollar NIH program called RADx Tech to support the development, commercialization, and production scale-up of accurate, rapid COVID-19 assays. His efforts have helped to establish a new model of translational research for medical technologies that is now widely applied across multiple funding agencies.