Rate My Professor Anna Ranta

Professor Anna Ranta is an academic stroke neurologist serving as Head of Department of Medicine at the University of Otago, Wellington, within the Faculty of Medicine. She earned her MD from Pennsylvania State University in 1999, completed neurology residency and neurophysiology/epilepsy fellowship at the University of Virginia Health System, a Postgraduate Certificate in Science (Public Health) from Massey University in 2010, and a PhD from the University of Otago in 2014. Holding fellowships FRACP, FAHA, FAAN, and FWSO, she has lived in New Zealand since 2007 and assumed her current headship in 2008.

Professor Ranta leads the New Zealand National Stroke Registry and Stroke Strategy, co-directs the National Hyper-Acute Stroke Programme, and holds positions including immediate past President of the Neurological Association of New Zealand, Secretary of the Stroke Society of Australasia, Board Member of the World Stroke Organization and New Zealand Stroke Foundation, and editorial board member for Stroke, Neurology, and the Journal of the American Heart Association. Her research specializes in translational stroke research to enhance care quality and access, with emphasis on health inequities affecting rural, Māori, and Pacific populations. As PI or Co-PI, she oversees projects like ambulance telestroke RCTs, the international CERTAIN tenecteplase collaboration, climate change impacts on stroke, and decision support tools such as the FASTEST TIA trial. Author of over 200 peer-reviewed articles, notable publications include "Symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage with tenecteplase vs alteplase..." (JAMA Neurology, 2023), "Ethnic differences in stroke outcomes in Aotearoa New Zealand" (International Journal of Stroke, 2023), and "Geographic disparities in stroke outcomes..." (Neurology, 2022). Her contributions have advanced stroke policy and equity in New Zealand and internationally.