Ambassador for Epilepsy Award 2023

Mary Secco is a community epilepsy educator and advocate. Her interest in global public health began when she was elected Vice President for the IBE North America Region in 2009. In this role she coordinated the first IBE young adult summit in Washington. Working with IBE has led to many opportunities to improve the social condition of people with epilepsy across the globe. Mary’s recent contributions were the development of a stigma reduction toolkit and health diplomacy training modules for the IBE Academy. Mary served as Secretary General for the IBE from 2017-2021. She was appointed as IBE focal point to the WHO (2015-2022) where she worked as part of the team that coordinated, edited and launched “Epilepsy: A public health imperative”, the official side event at the 72nd World Health Assembly, and helped to engage IBE chapters to support the passing of the Intersectoral Global Plan on Epilepsy and Other Neurological Disorders. Mary is a past co-chair of the ILAE Global Outreach Task Force and continues to serve as the Chair of Global Advocacy for the IBE.