New neurologists join Children's National

Raquel Farias-Moeller, MD, joins the Children’s National neuro-critical care faculty and stroke program. She specializes in care for patients experiencing status epilepticus, childhood stroke, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, and intracranial hemorrhage. Dr. Farias-Moeller is seeing patients at the Children’s main campus in the Neuro-ICU.

Jennifer Martelle Tu, MD, PhD, joins the Children’s National team after working as a child neurology fellow at the University of California San Francisco. At Children’s National, she mainly works with patients with movement disorders and headache conditions. She has a special interest in neuropharmacology and its application to the neurocircuitry involved in movement control and the generation of pain. Dr. Martelle Tu is seeing patients at the Montgomery County Regional Outpatient Center.

Juma Mbwana, MD, joins Children’s as a pediatric neurologist coming from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Mbwana has participated in research that facilitated the development of novel functional MRI (fMRI) analysis method for patients with epilepsy in partnership with NINDS-NIH as well as research covering neurological disorders, specifically epilepsy, involving methods using biomedical engineering innovations and emerging technologies. Dr. Mbwana sees patients at the Annapolis and Laurel Regional Outpatient Centers.

Laura Tochen, MD, joins Children’s National as co-director of the Movement Disorders Program.  Dr. Tochen completed a fellowship in movement disorders at Johns Hopkins Hospital and currently treats children with tics, Tourette’s syndrome, dystonia, ataxia, and chorea. She has a particular interest in the use of deep brain stimulation to treat pediatric movement disorders. Dr. Tochen sees patients in the Children’s main campus and Laurel Regional Outpatient Center.

Paola Pergami, MD, PhD, is a pediatric neurologist within the Neuro-intensive Care Unit at Children’s National. Dr. Pergami has an interest and expertise in pediatric stroke. Before joining the team at Children’s, Dr. Pergami developed the Pediatric Stroke Program at West Virginia University. She also participated to many multi-center trials in pediatric stroke, and she is interested in acute stroke management and mechanisms of brain plasticity in stroke recovery. Dr. Pergami practices in the Montgomery County Regional Outpatient Center and the Children’s main campus.