Alison Christy, MD, PhD

A 2021-2022 Portland Monthly "Top Doctor," Alison Christy, M.D., PhD, is the only pediatric neuroimmunologist in Oregon. She serves as the clinical director for Providence Pediatric Neurology. She is also the recipient of Providence's 2022 Value's in Action award, which is our highest honor for displaying compassion, dignity, justice, excellence and integrity.

Dr. Christy is actively establishing the Providence Center for Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology, one of the only centers in the Pacific Northwest dedicated to pediatric neuroimmunology. The Center conducts research and provides clinical trials to offer improved care for pediatric patients with multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune or neurological diseases, including PANDAS/PANS (pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcal infection/pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome). The Center is funded by a generous grant from a grateful patient’s family.

She is editor-in-chief of the Child Neurology Open, which is an open-access sister journal of the Journal of Child Neurology, one of the premier journals in pediatric clinical neurology. Dr. Christy also serves as the director of the Residents and Fellows Board for the Journal plus she interviews other pediatric neurologists in podcasts for the Journal to spread information about current research and developments in pediatric neurology. Additionally, Dr. Christy was elected as the Councillor for the West to the Executive Board of the Child Neurology Society.

Dr. Christy received a Bachelor of Arts in neurosciences at Amherst College in Massachusetts. She studied medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where she also received a PhD in immunology for her research on immune cells in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. She completed her residency in child neurology at Oregon Health and Sciences University, where she was active in teaching, medical ethics and medical humanities, and received the Dr. Cheryl Hanna Humanism Award “in recognition of her compassion, selflessness and concern for patients’ spiritual and emotional well-being.”

Dr. Christy continues to research, publish and present on pediatric neuroimmunological diseases. She is interested in community education on pediatric neurological disorders and protection of the brain, and has presented in schools, at juvenile detention centers, and to nursing and physical assistant groups.

Her areas of expertise include: pediatric neurology; neuroimmunological disorders, including multiple sclerosis, white matter disease and leukodystrophies; headaches (including Botox injections and occipital nerve blocks); epilepsy and seizure disorders; and movement disorders.

In her spare time, Dr. Christy loves playing the ukulele and singing, reading and writing fiction, running, and hanging out with her two elementary-school-aged children. She has lived and worked for a year each in Germany and Russia, and speaks a lot of German and a little Russian.