Peter Nakaji, MD, is an internationally known neurosurgeon, who has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and holds more than two dozen patents.

Dr. Nakaji completed his residency at the University of California – San Diego. He received additional fellowship training in endoscopic neurosurgery at the Centre for Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery in Sydney, Australia, under the direction of Charles Teo, MD. He completed a second fellowship in cerebrovascular and skull base surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute at Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix under Robert Spetzler, MD, before joining the staff as an attending neurosurgeon in 2004.

Dr. Nakaji has received a number of teaching awards and has served for nearly a decade as the program director for the Neurosurgery residency at Barrow Neurological Institute. In his role as department chair at Banner Health, Dr. Nakaji extends neuroscience training for medical students, residents and fellows.

Dr. Nakaji is a pioneer in the area of neuroendoscopy for “keyhole” treatment of conditions such as trigeminal neuralgia and colloid cysts. He has a passion for technically demanding brain surgery and is a respected authority in the treatment of aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, cavernous malformations, moyamoya disease, extracranial-intracranial bypass, carotid artery disease, as well as brain and skull base tumors.

Nicholas Theodore, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Neurosurgical Spine Center, is a nationally recognized expert in brain and spinal cord injury, minimally invasive spine surgeries and robotics. He earned a medical degree at  Georgetown University School of Medicine and completed both a residency in neurosurgery and a fellowship in spinal surgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute.

As an award-winning teacher and researcher, Dr. Theodore has written or co-authored more thab 30 book chapters, over 180 peer-reviewed journal articles and is co-holder of 10 patents for medical devices and procedures. His research focuses on trauma, spinal cord injuries, robotics and developing an understanding of the genetic and molecular basis of spinal diseases.

Dr. Jacques J. Morcos is a highly renowned, double fellowship-trained neurosurgeon whose areas of expertise span cerebrovascular lesions, including aneurysms, brain arteriovenous and cavernous malformations, dural arteriovenous fistulae, MoyaMoya disease, stroke and cerebral ischemia, carotid endarterectomy, bypass surgery (STA-MCA and high flow), microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm, as well as complex brain tumors including skull base tumors such as pituitary adenomas, meningiomas, acoustic neuromas, and head and neck cancers, and radiosurgery. He is highly experienced in multidisciplinary minimally invasive endonasal endoscopic approaches, as well as all open skull base approaches.

A native of Lebanon, Dr. Morcos earned his medical degree at the American University of Beirut. After initially starting his post-graduate training in England, he completed residency training in neurological surgery at the University of Minnesota Hospital and Clinics, a fellowship in cerebrovascular surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine, and a fellowship in cerebrovascular and skull base surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. He joins McGovern Medical School and UTHealth Houston Neurosciences from the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Miami Health System, where he was co-chair as well as professor of clinical neurosurgery and otolaryngology, director of cerebrovascular surgery, director of skull base surgery, and division chief of cranial neurosurgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.

Dr. Morcos’ research includes observational studies in aneurysm surveillance, an AVM registry, the impact of targeted therapies in NF2 acoustic neuromas, and laboratory dissections to optimize and innovate neurosurgical approaches. He is currently president-elect of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and will assume the presidency in 2024. He also is president-elect of the World Federation of Skull Base Societies, assuming the presidency in 2025.

Michael T. Lawton, MD, is the President and CEO of Barrow Neurological Institute, Robert F. Spetzler Endowed Chair for Neurosciences, and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery. He is board certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery.

Dr. Lawton’s neurosurgical expertise includes cerebrovascular disorders (aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, cavernous malformations, and stroke) and skull base tumors. He has experience in treating more than 5,250 brain aneurysms, 1,200 arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), and 1,200 cavernous malformations, including more than 400 in the brainstem and other highly delicate areas of the brain. He is a member of the the American Academy of Neurological Surgery, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the Society of Neurological Surgeons, and the World Academy of Neurological Surgery.

Dr. Lawton received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland and an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He completed his neurosurgery residency at Barrow, where he also completed a fellowship in cerebrovascular and skull base surgery. After joining the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, he later completed a fellowship in endovascular surgery there.

Dr. Lawton’s research studies the formation, underlying genetics, and rupture of brain AVMs, as well as the hemodynamics, rupture, and computational modeling of brain aneurysms. His clinical research studies the anatomy of microsurgical approaches and clinical outcomes of microsurgery for aneurysms, AVMs, and bypass surgery. He is the principal investigator for the Brain Vascular Malformation Consortium, a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded multicenter group studying the genetics and clinical course of rare vascular diseases of the brain. He has published more than 900 peer-reviewed articles, eight single-author textbooks, and more than 120 book chapters.

Dr. Adnan H. Siddiqui, is Professor and Vice Chairman in the Department of Neurosurgery (UBNS) at the State University of New York at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Siddiqui completed fellowship training in Interventional Neuroradiology, Cerebrovascular Surgery and Neurocritical Care from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He completed his Neurosurgical residency at Upstate Medical University and received his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Rochester and medical degree from Aga Khan University in Pakistan. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, American College of Surgeons and American Heart Association.

Dr. Siddiqui has special interest and expertise in the performance of complementary microsurgical, radiosurgical and endovascular techniques for the comprehensive management of cerebrovascular conditions. This spectrum of disease includes aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations, as well as dural, cavernous and spinal fistulae. He has special interests in endovascular management of acute ischemic stroke, as well as endovascular and microsurgical management of extracranial and intracranial vascular occlusive disease.

Dr. Siddiqui has over 450 peer reviewed publications, more than 50 chapters, almost 70,000 citations and an H index of 72. He is particularly proud of representing Buffalo and the US at most major cerebrovascular conferences around the world with over 200 international presentations to date. He has designed, conducted and lead multiple major national and international clinical trials and currently serves as National and International PI for multiple major funded multi-site trials. These efforts have significantly contributed to the success of the department, which was ranked 7th in academic impact in North America by the Journal of Neurosurgery.

Dr. Siddiqui has continuously served on multiple scientific and educational committees of American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) and Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS). He is the Chairman of the Joint Section of Cerebrovascular Surgery of the AANS and CNS and Secretary for the SNIS. It has been a major focus for him to achieve consensus between the various organizations involved in fellowship training and credentialing for Neuroendovascular Surgery.

Fernando Gonzalez, M.D., is a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon trained in both open vascular and endovascular. He is a professor of neurosurgery at The Johns Hopkins Department of Neurosusrgery. Dr. Gonzalez earned his medical degree from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia, where he also completed residency training in neurosurgery. He completed a neurosurgery research fellowship at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, with a focus on skull base, vascular and microanatomy microsurgery. Dr. Gonzalez continued his training at Barrow by completing a second residency, during which he pursued additional fellowships in spine surgery, endovascular neurosurgery, and cerebrovascular and skull base surgery. His experties includes patients with stroke, malformations and ruptures in the brain and spine, including aneurysms, strokes and arteriovenous malformations. He also specializes in delivering chemotherapy through the arteries of the brain for treatment of certain eye cancers, such as retinoblastomas — the most common eye cancer in children — and lacrimal gland carcinomas. Dr. Gonzalez is widely published in his field and actively pursues novel approaches to treatment. He invented an aspiration catheter with an attached guidewire, and a surgical retractor for minimally invasive brain surgery.

Dr. Jason Davies is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Biomedical Informatics at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, where he joined the department in 2016. He completed residency training in the Department of Neurological Surgery at University of California, San Francisco. He specializes in cerebrovascular and skull base neurosurgery, first under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Lawton for his open training, and subsequently having completed a fellowship in endovascular neurosurgery with UB Neurosurgery. He has extensive experience treating aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, cavernous malformations, and arteriovenous fistulae, stroke, carotid stenosis, cerebral bypass, and other vascular disease using both open and endovascular approaches, and is able to offer comprehensive care for his patients.

Dr. Davies graduated from Stanford University, where he obtained a BS in Chemistry with minors in Biological Sciences. His active research interests focus on using bioinformatics tools to advance personalized medicine. He is working to develop of bioinformatics tools to improve the quantity and quality of data available for medical research, and to lower barriers to entry for all clinicians to contribute to medical knowledge. Furthermore, he is working to bring to bear more advanced machine learning and data analytic methods to better understand the insights contained within these rich data resources. Currently, he is the principal investigator of several national trails including EMBOLIZE trial looking at the efficacy of middle cerebral artery embolization for the treatment of chronic subdural hematomas.

Dr Starke is an associate Professor of Clinical Neurosurgery, Neuroradiology and Neurosciences co-Director of Endovascular Neurosurgery. He graduated from medical school Albert Einstein College of Medicine , Bronx, New York. He did his residency in the department of neurosurgery University of Virginia , Charlottesville, Virginia. He then continue his training in endovascualr neurosurgery at University of Virginia , Charlottesville, Virginia and Thomas Jefferson University , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He specializes in the treatment of cerebral vascular disease including aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations and fistulas, cavernous malformaitons, moyamoya disease, carotid and intracranial stenosis including bypass surgery. He has published more than 700 publications indexed in Pubmed, contributed to dozens of books chapters in the neurpsurgery literature. He has received numerous awards including:  the cerebrovascular Clinician Investigator Research Award by the BEE Foundation, the cerebrovascular Research Award by the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, the Cerebrovascular Clinician Investigator Research Award by Joe Niekro Research Foundation and the cerebrovascular Section Young Clinician Investigator Award by the Neurosurgery Research Education Foundation.