Dr. Sam Fereshtehnejad

Principal Investigator

Dr. Seyed-Mohammad (Sam) Fereshtehnejad is a movement disorders neurologist and clinician-scientist with international training across Iran, Sweden, and Canada. He is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Neurology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a member of the Pacific Parkinson’s Research Centre (PPRC). His clinical and research work focuses on Parkinson’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders, with particular emphasis on early and prodromal disease stages, including REM sleep behavior disorder and other high-risk populations for synucleinopathies. His research program integrates translational biomarker discovery, neuroimaging, and data-driven methods to understand disease heterogeneity and progression.

Dr. Fereshtehnejad received his MD from Iran University of Medical Sciences, where he concurrently completed a Master of Public Health (MPH). He later completed a Master of Science (MSc) in Medical Education at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. He completed his PhD in Clinical Neuroscience and Neuroepidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, followed by postdoctoral research at McGill University. He subsequently completed neurology residency training at the University of Ottawa and Movement Disorders fellowship training at the University of Toronto, where he also completed a Master of Health Informatics.

Dr. Fereshtehnejad has authored nearly 300 peer-reviewed publications with over 170,000 citations and an h-index in the 80s. He is actively involved in international research collaborations and consortia focused on Parkinson’s disease epidemiology, biomarkers, and precision medicine, and is committed to advancing translational research and training the next generation of clinician-scientists in neurodegeneration with focus on early detection and prevention.