Tanya Simuni, MD, is the Arthur C. Nielsen Jr. Research Professor and Director of the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. She also serves as Residency Program Director in the Department of Neurology.

Dr Simuni graduated with her medical degree from Leningrad Medical School and completed an internship in medicine in Leningrad, Russia. She subsequently completed an internship in internal medicine at Albert Einstein Medical Center and a neurology residency and a clinical neurophysiology fellowship at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She remained in Philadelphia to pursue a movement disorders fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, where she served on the clinical faculty of the Department of Neurology for three years and held the position of Medical Co-Director of the Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Movement Disorders surgical program prior to her current positions. Dr Simuni is board certified in neurology and clinical neurophysiology.

Dr Simuni joined the faculty of the Northwestern University Feinberg school of Medicine in 2000 to build and lead a multidisciplinary movement disorders center that is recognized by the National Parkinson Foundation as a Center of Excellence and serves as a training model in the region. She is the lead investigator of a number of clinical trials on experimental pharmacology, non-motor manifestations, and pharmacological and surgical management of PD. Dr Simuni is currently the Investigator of more than a dozen PD clinical trials, one of which is a multicenter Phase 2 clinical trial, supported by a multimillion dollar grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation, that will evaluate isradipine as a potential disease-modifying agent in early PD. She serves on a number of Steering Committees for the PD national clinical trials, and on several committees of the Parkinson Study Group and the National Parkinson Foundation. Her works have been widely published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and she has lectured nationally on PD and other movement disorders.

Dr Simuni is an active member of the American Academy of Neurology, American Neurological Association, and the Movement Disorders Society, as well as the Parkinson Study Group, Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group, and REM Behavior Disorders Study Group. In 2008, the Northwestern Medical Foundation honored and selected her from more than 500 faculty members for the Physician Excellence Award in Clinical Leadership.

• Mille ML, Johnson Hilliard M, Martinez KM, Simuni T, Rogers MW. Acute effects of a lateral postural assist on voluntary step initiation in patients with Parkinson's disease. Mov Disord. 2007 Jan;22(1):20-7.
• Liang GS, Chou KL, Baltuch GH, Jaggi JL, Loveland-Jones C, Leng L, Maccarone H, Hurtig HI, Colcher A, Stern MB, Kleiner-Fisman G, Simuni T, Siderowf AD. Long-term outcomes of bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease. Stereotact Funct Neurosurg. 2006;84(5-6):221-7. Epub 2006 Oct 23.
• Siderowf A, Jaggi JL, Xie SX, Loveland-Jones C, Leng L, Hurtig H, Colcher A, Stern M, Chou KL, Liang G, Maccarone H, Simuni T, Baltuch G. Long-term effects of bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation on health-related quality of life in advanced Parkinson's disease. Mov Disord. 2006 Jun;21(6):746-53.
• MacKinnon CD, Gilley EA, Weis-McNulty A, Simuni T. Pathways mediating abnormal intracortical inhibition in Parkinson's disease. Ann Neurol. 2005 Oct;58(4):516-24.
• Curtin KR, Shaibani A, Resnick SA, Russell EJ, Simuni T. Rheolytic catheter thrombectomy, balloon angioplasty, and direct recombinant tissue plasminogen activator thrombolysis of dural sinus thrombosis with preexisting hemorrhagic infarctions. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 2004 Nov-Dec;25(10):1807-11.
• Simuni T. Somnolence and other sleep disorders in Parkinson's disease: the challenge for the practicing neurologist. Neurol Clin. 2004 Oct;22(3 Suppl):S107-26. Review. No abstract available.
• Counelis GJ, Simuni T, Forman MS, Jaggi JL, Trojanowski JQ, Baltuch GH. Bilateral subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation for advanced PD: correlation of intraoperative MER and postoperative MRI with neuropathological findings.
  Mov Disord. 2003 Sep;18(9):1062-5.
• Simuni T, Jaggi JL, Mulholland H, Hurtig HI, Colcher A, Siderowf AD, Ravina B, Skolnick BE, Goldstein R, Stern MB, Baltuch GH. Bilateral stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus in patients with Parkinson disease: a study of efficacy and safety. J Neurosurg. 2002 Apr;96(4):666-72.