Dr. Janelle Wagner is a Research Professor at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in the College of Nursing, with a secondary appointment in the College of Medicine. She is also a faculty member of the MUSC Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. Dr. Wagner received her Masters and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Oklahoma State University. She completed an internship and fellowship in Pediatric Psychology at MUSC and joined the faculty in 2005. She has received the William R. Turk Research Award in Pediatric Epilepsy and Fellow Status at the American Epilepsy Society.
Dr. Wagner’s program of research includes behavioral health assessment and intervention in youth with pediatric epilepsy. She has been funded as a PI by the Epilepsy Foundation, Parents Against Childhood Epilepsy (PACE), the American Epilepsy Society (AES), and the Henkin Family Foundation. As a Co-I, she has been funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and as a Site PI, she has received funding from the National Institute of Nursing Research and National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
With MUSC nursing colleagues, Dr. Wagner developed a screening measure for depression in pediatric epilepsy (Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy in Youth; NDDI-E-Y) that has been translated into several other languages and collaborated on a national validation of a the PedsQL Epilepsy Module. With her national colleagues, Dr. Wagner co-developed an mHealth adherence intervention for families of young children with epilepsy and a problem solving intervention for teens with epilepsy and executive function difficulties. She leads the MUSC site in its contributions to the Pediatric Epilepsy Learning Health System (PELHS) and the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium (PERC). Dr. Wagner has over 120 peer reviewed publications, holds leadership positions within the national and international epilepsy professional communities, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, Society of Pediatric Psychology, American Academy of Neurology, International League Against Epilepsy, PERC, and AES. She also serves on the Editorial Board for three top tier epilepsy and pediatric psychology journals. Dr. Wagner spends her personal time traveling, watching her boys play soccer, practicing yoga, and participating in a book club.