Dr. Ichord’s research focuses on critically ill children with stroke and acute brain injury. During her early career at Johns Hopkins, she had studied mechanisms of cerebral ischemic injury in the critical care/aAnesthesiology research laboratory, using animal models of stroke and cardiac arrest. After moving to CHOP in 2002, she focused exclusively on clinical research, aiming to better understand determinants of outcome, and treatment for stroke, cardiac arrest and traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Ichord was a founding member of the International Pediatric Stroke Study (IPSS) in 1998. She completed the validation of the pediatric National Institutes of Health stroke scale with an NIH-funded R01 in a multicenter prospective cohort study via the IPSS network. She completed the validation of the pediatric NIH stroke scale with an NIH-funded R01 in a multicenter prospective cohort study via the IPSS network. This was a precursor to multiple ongoing multicenter studies of childhood stroke through the IPSS.

Along with her colleagues, Dr. Ichord continues to analyze and publish data from the CHOP stroke prospective cohort study, including incidence and predictors of post-stroke epilepsy; recurrent stroke in posterior circulation ischemia; neuropsychological sequelae of childhood stroke; the role of patent foramen ovale as a risk factor; and barriers/opportunities for hyperacute reperfusion therapies in ischemic stroke. Collaborations with rehabilitation scientists at CHOP include pilot studies of novel interventions for hemiplegia using modified constraint strategies and gait training.

In addition, Dr. Ichoard collaborates with investigators at Georgetown University to better understand language and cognitive sequelae of neonatal and childhood stroke. She has partnered with critical care researchers studying neurologic outcomes after pediatric cardiac arrest through on-going studies at CHOP and with the NIH-sponsored THAPCA trial (Therapeutic Hypothermia after Pediatric Cardiac Arrest), and cerebrovascular complications of heart failure treated with a ventricular assist device in the Berlin EXCOR trial.

BS, University of Hawaii (Biology), 1975

MD, George Washington School of Medicine, 1979

Director, Pediatric Stroke Program

Professor of Neurology & Pediatrics

American Academy of Neurology, 1991-

Child Neurology Society, 1991-

Master Clinician Award, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 2008