Dr. Spanaki has been practicing clinical epilepsy since 2000, with an emphasis on women’s issues in epilepsy, diagnosis and treatment of drug resistant epilepsy and interpretation of continuous EEG studies. She also offers presurgical evaluation of patients who are candidates for epilepsy surgery and other invasive techniques, such as Vagus Nerve Stimulation and Responsive NeuroStimulation.

She is the co-editor of a book entitled “Understanding Epilepsy: A Study Guide for the Boards.”

An active advocate for epilepsy patients, Dr. Spanaki-Varelas co-led the American Epilepsy Society (AES) work group that developed the position statement on Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). She was instrumental in changing Michigan driving laws pertaining to seizures in collaboration with the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and Michigan State Medical Society (MSMS).

She completed fellowships in epilepsy at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Md., and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and a research fellowship at Yale School of Medicine’s Division of Epilepsy in New Haven, Conn. She also completed residencies in neurology, psychiatry and internal medicine at hospitals in Greece. She earned her medical degree from the University of Patras, School of Health Sciences in Greece, and earned an Executive MBA from the University of Tennessee.