Robert J. Mittan, Ph.D.

For 25 years, Robert J. Mittan, Ph.D. has been helping people with epilepsy and their families. He is recognized as one of the foremost epilepsy educators in the world. His work helping others has earned many awards and his research on epilepsy has resulted in new and important discoveries.

Dr. Mittan is a clinical neuropsychologist. He received a Ph.D. with Distinction at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1981. He served his internship at Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute, University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine.. Dr. Mittan began his research of epilepsy after being appointed to the Neurology Department at UCLA School of Medicine in 1980. 

Dr. Mittan received one of the largest psychosocial research grants for epilepsy awarded by the National Institutes of Health. That study became the basis of the S.E.E. program. Dr. Mittan spent ten years at UCLA, first as a Research Neurologist, and then as an Assistant Professor of Neurology. He also had faculty appointments at the Drew Postgraduate Medical School, the California School of Professional Psychology, and the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology. He served as an outside faculty member in the Graduate Department of Psychology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand

In 1988 Dr. Mittan became Director of Neuropsychology & Psychology at the Carolinas HealthCare System in Charlotte, NC. There he built a Medical Psychology Department from two people to 36 professional staff serving a 2,000 bed multihospital system. In 1994 he became Director of Patient & Family Education, authoring many patient education programs. These include a Patient and Family Guide for Stroke, selected as the best new patient education program in the U.S. 

Throughout this all, Dr. Mittan continued to develop and present the S.E.E. program. He founded a new company, techKNOWvideo. The mission of this company is to develop effective (and entertaining) patient and family education on videotape for a price that is affordable. Producing epilepsy self-management aids, handouts, booklets, and the S.E.E. program on video and DVD are among his first projects.