Simona Balestrini, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Child Neurology and Psychiatry at the Neuroscience Department, Children's Hospital A. Meyer, and the University of Florence. She is also a Consultant Neurologist at the Chalfont Centre for Epilepsy and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UCLH, as well as a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology.

Dr. Balestrini specializes in epilepsy genetics, rare and complex neurodevelopmental disorders, and neurophysiology. Her research focuses on genomic and neurophysiological tools to understand the causes, course, and treatment response of epilepsy, with the aim of translating findings into personalised treatments. She has made significant contributions to rare and complex neurological conditions, including studies on genotype-phenotype correlations, neuroimaging, and biomarkers for neurological disorders.

She qualified in Medicine and completed her specialist training in Neurology at the Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy, where she also obtained her PhD in Human Health in 2017. She has received numerous awards for her work, and has published extensively in the fields of epilepsy and neuroscience. She leads international research projects on rare epilepsy syndromes and translational approaches, particularly using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)