“Seek the truth, act in kindness, create beauty, do the needful deed.” Renée Shellhaas has her family motto above her fireplace, and her devotion to research, mentorship, and care in child neurology exemplifies her commitment to this creed. Internationally renowned in pediatric epilepsy, a master in the field of neonatal epilepsy and neonatal sleep studies, Dr. Shellhaas is also known for her leadership in the Pellock Seminar and her work through the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Foundation®. She is described as a tireless advocate, coach, and cheerleader for her trainees and mentees.
Born in Canada to pediatric neurology legends Carol and Peter Camfield, Dr. Shellhaas went to Middlebury College for her undergraduate education, where she learned French, studied ecology in Madagascar, and played the chapel organ and carillon. She then attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for medical school. She went to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for pediatric neurology residency, where she remained for a fellowship in clinical neurophysiology and started her research on neonatal seizures.
Dr. Shellhaas then returned to the University of Michigan, where she joined the faculty and rose through the academic ranks. She also continued her education there, obtaining a Master’s Degree in Clinical Research Design and Statistical Analysis through the University of Michigan School of Public Health. In 2008, she received the Child Neurology Shields Grant, a grant later supported by the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Foundation (PERF®). She would eventually be invited to join the PERF Board of Directors and served as president-elect for two years before rising to the role of president in 2024.
At the University of Michigan, Dr. Shellhaas continued to study neonatal seizures and the neonatal electroencephalogram (EEG). In 2011, she led the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society’s Guideline on neonatal continuous EEG monitoring; she is the senior author for the upcoming revision of this important Guideline. In 2012, Dr. Shellhaas co-founded the Neonatal Seizure Registry with Dr. Hannah Glass, building a consortium of physicians and parent partners and an extensive funded research portfolio to study the complex physiology, treatment, and outcomes of newborns with seizures.
Dr. Shellhaas’ research on newborn brain monitoring led her to study neonatal sleep. Her studies on neonates with spinal cord dysraphism won her the 2015 Strategic Research Award from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation. In 2020, she won the Sleep Science Award from the American Academy of Neurology for her studies on sleep-disordered breathing and its impact on neurodevelopment in high-risk newborns. She has studied ways to improve NICU design to improve neonatal sleep – including increasing parental involvement. Dr. Shellhaas also investigated sleep in infants and toddlers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Shellhaas has collaborated actively with colleagues from the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium and the Pediatric Epilepsy Learning Healthcare System to study the safety and efficacy of various seizure treatments in neonates, children, and adolescents. In 2021, with lead author Dr. Glass, she published important work demonstrating that antiseizure medications can be safely stopped before leaving the NICU in most cases of symptomatic neonatal seizures – now incorporated in the International League Against Epilepsy treatment guideline, this intervention that will reduce medication use for many babies and families.
In 2022, Dr. Shellhaas left the University of Michigan, where she was Director of Research in the Pediatric Neurology Division and Associate Chair of Career Development in the Department of Pediatrics, to join the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis as the David T. Blasingame Professor of Neurology and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Promotions and Career Development.
Unquestionably, Dr. Shellhaas has devoted herself to the Child Neurology Society. She served as a Councilor from the Midwest on the CNS Board of Directors (2015-2017), chaired countless symposia and seminars, and sat on many committees, including Scientific Selection and Program Planning, Ethics, and Research. Since 2016, she has co-directed the John M. “Jack” Pellock Resident Seminar on Epilepsy, an annual seminar held in conjunction with the CNS Annual Meeting, first with epileptologists Drs. Elaine Wirrell and Phillip Pearl and now with Drs. Giulia Benedetti and Courtney Wusthoff. In 2021, she became a founding member of the CNS Leadership, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion task force.
Dr. Shellhaas has also dedicated her time to many societies outside of the CNS. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Neurology Executive Committee, sits on the Board of Directors of the American Epilepsy Society, has served as an associate editor of Neurology, and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Child Neurology, Pediatric Neurology, and the Annals of the Child Neurology Society.
Dr. Shellhaas lives with her husband and children in St. Louis, MO. She believes in combining work and family life; she received the nickname “Commander” because of her habit of sitting at a “command center” of computers to edit papers, read EEGs, and analyze research data while her children warmed up for hockey games, gymnastics meets, or music performances.
At the Pellock Resident Seminar on Epilepsy, Dr. Shellhaas gives an annual lecture on career development in which she tells the residents that once they are invited to the table, they should give their best performance so that they will be invited back and grow their careers. Following her own advice, Dr. Shellhaas always gives her all: seeking truth, acting in kindness, creating beauty, and doing the needful deeds.