John J. McGinley, PhD

John McGinley, PhD, FAES, is Director, Neuropsychology, Comprehensive Epilepsy Management Center at Montefiore Einstein and Assistant Professor, Neurology at our Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. McGinley's clinical focus includes the presurgical neuropsychological assessment of adults and children with epilepsy, the multidisciplinary administration of the Wada procedure and the facilitation of intraoperative language mapping. He also performs presurgical neuropsychological evaluations of patients with Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders, such as dystonia and essential tremor to assist with the determination of deep brain stimulation (DBS) suitability. Dr. McGinley also conducts brief neuropsychological evaluations for the assessment of dementia at the Center for the Aging Brain (CAB) as part of a multidisciplinary team of Neurologists, Geriatricians and Neuropsychologists.

After he obtained his Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Saint Peter's College in 1989, Dr. McGinley earned his Master of Science in applied psychology with a research concentration from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1992. He earned his Master of Social Work at the City University of New York in 1996 and combined his clinical and research interests through the attainment of a scientist-practitioner Doctor of Philosophy in clinical health psychology at Yeshiva University. in 2001. Dr. McGinley completed his psychology internship at St. Charles Hospital & Rehabilitation Center in 2001, with postdoctoral training in pediatric neuropsychology at private practices in Long Island and New Jersey in 2007.

Dr. McGinley’s research focuses on epilepsy surgery outcomes, the impact of deep brain stimulation, the identification of biomarkers for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), shared cognitive pathways in epilepsy and autism and the impact of medications on neurological diseases such as systemic lupus. Dr. McGinley is a co-investigator for the Montefiore Einstein research project, “Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) on Cognitive and Emotional Behaviors,” and is a collaborator on another project titled “Vocal Biomarker Discovery for Mild Cognitive Impairment Detection.” He is also the developer of a modified Wada procedure for “standard-of-care” presurgical epilepsy assessment in persons with early-onset visual impairment/blindness (VI/B). His work has been shared through numerous peer-reviewed publications and invited presentations.

Dr. McGinley is a Licensed Psychologist and a Fellow of the American Epilepsy Society (FAES) and currently serves as a member of the AES Annual Conference’s Pediatric Content Committee. He is also a member of the National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN) and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). In 2016, Dr. McGinley was selected to attend the inaugural “International Training Course on Neuropsychology in Epilepsy” at Château de Rosay, France, sponsored by the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE).