Dr Takijah Heard is a Chicago native, born on the south side of Chicago. Dr Heard received her doctorate of medicine from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She remained on the south side at UIC/Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital for her pediatric residency. Dr Heard’s pediatric neurology residency and epilepsy fellowship was completed at Harvard’s Boston Children Hospital. After completing her fellowship in epilepsy, she attended the Harvard School of Public Health to learn more about how to conduct epilepsy research in order to impact the world on a broader level. She has travelled to various countries in Central America and Africa including Zambia and Tanzania teaching and spreading awareness about epilepsy. In 2018, Dr Heard continued these educational efforts by travelling to Kenya with a mentoring program called I Am Abel Foundation. Dr Heard’s teaching skills have been honored as she was the recipient of the Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award during her first position as the Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Houston. She has worked extensively with the Epilepsy Foundation of Texas and Greater Chicago and now functions as a board member and physician advisor. She currently serves on the Physician Advisory Board for the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Chicago. Dr Heard’s passion for epilepsy has been shared on National Public Radio (NPR), FOX News in Chicago and WGN local news in Chicago. She has been named as one of 2013’s Top America Doctors. Dr Heard has authored chapters in books and articles focused on pediatric epilepsy. Additionally, she has been featured in an award winning book called Against All Odds Celebrating Black Women in Medicine that has recently turned into a documentary renamed Changing the Face of Medicine which was released in 2017. Dr Takijah Heard is currently working as pediatric neurologist and epileptologist at NorthShore University Health System as the Director of Pediatric Neurophysiology. She also works at Neurabilities Healthcare treat a more broad range of neurologic disease, behaviors and epilepsy. She cares for kids with any and all neurologic issues but has a special passion for children with seizures. She has helped with the creation of the MediKidz comic book series highlight her personal patients ability to conquer their epilepsy. She continues to teach medical students and residents about pediatric neurology and epilepsy in hopes of broadening the field. In 2022, she was awarded the Chicagoland Mentor of the Year Award by a medical mentoring group called the I Am Abe Foundation. She currently in on Instagram as the Baby Brain Doctor in an effort to increase education through the media avenues. She has pushed her passion for epilepsy awareness to the Mrs. America platform. She was crowned Mrs. Illinois on 6/17/23 and will be competing for Mrs. America on 8/26/23 in Las Vegas, Nevada. If crowned Mrs America, she will have a national platform to influence change in epilepsy education, care and awareness. In the meantime, she will use her 1 year of reign as Mrs. Illinois to increase epilepsy awareness through various speaking and appearances throughout Illinois.