Dr. Neelan Pillay

Biography

Dr. Neelan Pillay graduated with a medical degree from the University of Natal, South Africa in 1968 and became an internist in South Africa in 1973, where he also served as a Principal Physician and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medicine at King Edward VII Hospital. In 1975, he received the Ernest Oppenheimer Travelling Fellowship in neurology at the Regional Neurological Institute in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. After immigrating to Canada in 1977, Dr. Pillay completed fellowships in general neurology, epilepsy, and EMG at the University of Western Ontario. By 1980, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Manitoba as the Director of Epilepsy and EMG in the Division of Neurology, where he established an epilepsy program. He became the Division Head and Neurology Residency Program Director before joining the University of Calgary in 1998 as Deputy Head of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Dr. Pillay has been involved as a principal investigator in epilepsy clinical drug trials and served as a co-investigator for a NIMH multicentre pre-psychosis clinical trial in Calgary in 2007. He completed a one-year sabbatical at the Brain Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, focusing on EEG fMRI secondary generalized epilepsy and continues to conduct functional imaging research at the University of Calgary. His external service includes serving as President of the Canadian Neurological Society and the Canadian Neurological Congress.

Research Interests