Dr. Melissa Barker-Haliski is an associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics at the University of Washington. She obtained a PhD in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Utah. She has led the identification and pharmacological characterization of a diversity of novel preclinical models for antiseizure drug discovery, with a particular emphasis on developing strategies to uncover precision medicine therapies. Dr. Barker-Haliski was co-chair of the American Epilepsy Society/International League Against Epilepsy’s (ILAE) Pharmacology Common Data Elements Working Group from 2014-2018 and more recently led the Phenotyping Common Data Elements Working Group with the goal to harmonize preclinical pharmacology studies for epilepsy drug discovery by industry, government, and academia. Her research addresses how chronic seizures in Alzheimer’s disease influence functional and pathological trajectory, representing a new precision medicine opportunity to identify untapped therapeutic targets and disease-modifying strategies for neurological disorders.