School of Medicine


Showing 1-22 of 22 Results

  • Theo Palmer

    Theo Palmer

    Professor of Neurosurgery, Emeritus

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMembers of the Palmer Lab study the biology of neural stem cells in brain development and in the adult. Our primary goal is to understand how genes and environment synergize in influencing stem cell behavior during development and how mild genetic or environmental risk factors for disease may synergize in their detrimental effects on brain development or in the risk of neuronal loss in age-related degenerative disease.

  • David Jaehyun Park

    David Jaehyun Park

    Clinical Instructor, Neurosurgery

    BioDavid Park, MD, PhD, is a neurosurgeon who graduated from medical school at the Catholic University of Korea in Seoul, South Korea. He then completed his internship and residency training in the Department of Neurosurgery at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital. He became a board-certified neurosurgeon in South Korea in 2014 and subsequently completed a 2-year fellowship at the same hospital, specializing in brain tumor surgery and skull base surgery. During his residency, he also attended graduate school while practicing neurosurgery as a trainee and successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, titled “Combination therapy for gliomas using temozolomide and interferon-beta secreting human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells,” in 2015.

    After completing his fellowship in South Korea, Dr. Park moved to Singapore in 2016 and worked as a Clinical Fellow (Clinical Associate) at the National Neuroscience Institute for one year, focusing on Neurosurgical Oncology and Skull Base Surgery.

    In 2017, Dr. Park joined Dr. Christian Badr’s lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, conducting translational research on glioblastoma and studying the role of fatty acids and lipid metabolism in glioblastoma to complement his clinical expertise.

    During this time, Dr. Park also launched a startup based on his invention of an intraoperative diagnostic tool for tumor detection during glioma surgery. He collaborated with bioengineers at M.I.T. to develop a prototype and secured seed funding from the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund Program. As an alumnus of the MIT Sandbox program, he continues to develop this project.

    In 2020, Dr. Park served as a Neurosurgical Oncology and Radiosurgery Fellow (Teaching Associate) for a year at North Shore University Hospital, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, in Long Island, New York, where he worked with Dr. Michael Schulder on brain tumor surgery including advanced techniques, such as Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy (LITT) and Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS).

    From July 2021 to June 2022, he completed another fellowship in Neurosurgical Oncology and Radiosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. He devoted his efforts to minimally invasive neurosurgical techniques such as LITT and Gamma Knife SRS, as well as awake brain tumor surgery under the guidance of Drs. Gene Barnett, Lilyana Angelov, and Ali Mohammadi.

    As of July 2022, Dr. Park has joined the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University as a Clinical Instructor, working with Dr. Steven D. Chang in the fields of Neurosurgical Oncology and CyberKnife SRS.

  • Jon Park, MD, FRCSC

    Jon Park, MD, FRCSC

    Saunders Family Professor

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsNon-fusion dynamic spinal stabilization, artificial disc technologies, and regenerative spinal technologies.

  • Sonia Partap

    Sonia Partap

    Clinical Professor, Neurology
    Clinical Professor (By courtesy), Neurosurgery
    Clinical Professor, Pediatrics

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research interests involve the epidemiology, treatment and diagnosis of pediatric and young adult brain tumors. I am also interested in long-term neurologic effects and designing clinical trials to treat brain and spinal cord tumors.

  • Josef Parvizi, MD, PhD

    Josef Parvizi, MD, PhD

    Professor of Neurology (Adult Neurology) and, by courtesy, of Neurosurgery

    BioDr. Parvizi completed his medical internship at Mayo Clinic, neurology training at Harvard, and subspecialty training in clinical neurophysiology and epilepsy at UCLA before joining the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford in 2007. Dr. Parvizi directs the Stanford Program for Medication Resistant Epilepsies and specializes in surgical treatments of intractable focal epilepsies. Dr. Parvizi is the principal investigator in the Laboratory of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, where he leads a team of investigators to study the human brain. http://med.stanford.edu/parvizi-lab.html.

  • Claudia Katharina Petritsch

    Claudia Katharina Petritsch

    Associate Professor (Research) of Neurosurgery

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe Petritsch lab broadly investigates underlying causes for the intra-tumoral heterogeneity and immune suppression in brain tumors from a neuro-developmental perspective. Defective cell fate decisions fuel the intra-humoral heterogeneity and plasticity in human brain tumors and may contribute to immune suppression. We use patient-derived models as avatars to study how brain cells control the fate of their progeny, whereby we unravel novel points of vulnerabilities in brain tumor cells.

  • Patrick Pezeshkian, MD, FAANS

    Patrick Pezeshkian, MD, FAANS

    Clinical Associate Professor (Affiliated), Neurosurgery

    BioAfter completing his residency training in neurosurgery and a fellowship in Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery at UCLA, Dr. Pezeshkian joined the faculty at Kaiser Permanente Neurosurgery & Neuroscience department at Redwood City, California.

    Dr. Pezeshkians’ areas of expertise and neurosurgical focus are Deep Brain Stimulation surgery for movement and neuropsychiatric disorders, adult epilepsy surgery,, neuromodulation procedures for chronic refractory craniofacial pain syndromes and peripheral nerve surgeries for tumors and trauma.

    Dr. Pezeshkian is the Regional Director of the Functional Neurosurgery Program at the Northern California Kaiser Permanente healthcare system.

  • Harold Westley Phillips

    Harold Westley Phillips

    Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery (Pediatric Neurosurgery)

    BioH. Westley Phillips, MD is an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University where he is a neurosurgeon-scientist specializing in pediatric neurosurgery with a special interest in epilepsy. Dr. Phillips received his undergraduate degree at Yale University where he was a member of the Varsity Football Team and received a Fulbright Scholarship. He completed an MD at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a certificate of distinction in the Clinical Neuroscience Training Program. He completed neurosurgical residency at UCLA where he received 2 years of NIH funding to investigate the genetic underpinnings of epilepsy. He received fellowship training in pediatric epilepsy surgery and genetics research at Boston Children’s Hospital as well as pediatric neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh before his arrival at Stanford. At Stanford, Dr. Phillips leads a molecular genetics laboratory and has a particular interest in defining and further understanding somatic mosaicism and its role in epileptogenesis. He has published manuscripts in leading academic journals including Nature: Genetics, JAMA Neurology, Journal of Neuroscience, Scientific Reports, Epilepsia and Neurology. He is dedicated to improving the treatment and outcomes for children with drug resistant epilepsy through innovative research and cutting-edge surgical techniques.

  • Kathleen Poston, MD, MS

    Kathleen Poston, MD, MS

    Edward F. and Irene Thiele Pimley Professor of Neurology and the Neurological Sciences and Professor, by courtesy, of Neurosurgery

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research addresses one of the most devastating and poorly treated symptoms that can develop in people with Parkinson's disease - Dementia. We use multi-modal neuroimaging along with genetic and biological markers to understand the different underlying causes of dementia and to understand why dementia develops more quickly in some patients, but not others.

  • Benjamin Pulli, MD

    Benjamin Pulli, MD

    Clinical Assistant Professor, Radiology
    Clinical Assistant Professor (By courtesy), Neurosurgery

    BioDr. Pulli is a dual fellowship trained diagnostic and interventional neuroradiologist with a focus on vascular disorders of the brain, head, neck, and spine. He is a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Radiology, Neuroradiology Division.

    Having grown up in Austria, Dr. Pulli moved to the US after completing medical school in Innsbruck, Austria. He completed post-doctoral research training in stroke imaging in the Division of Neuroradiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as in experimental molecular imaging techniques of neuroinflammatory disorders at the Center for Systems Biology of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

    He completed residency training in Radiology and fellowship training in Diagnostic Neuroradiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He then completed a second fellowship in interventional neuroradiology/neurointerventional surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine.

    After having graduated from fellowship, Dr. Pulli then spent more than a year practicing Interventional Neuroradiology at Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Los Angeles. He employs state-of-the-art minimally invasive endovascular and percutaneous surgical techniques to treat patients with brain aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, dural arteriovenous fistulas, carotid artery stenosis, acute stroke, chronic subdural hematoma, idiopathic intracranial hypertension, vascular tumors, and chronic back pain.

    His research focuses on advanced imaging techniques for acute ischemic stroke and other neurovascular diseases. He has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and received scientific grants from institutions such as the Radiological Society of North America and the Ernst Schering Foundation. In addition, he has made invited presentations to his peers at meetings of organizations such as the American Society of Neuroradiology, Radiological Society of North American, European Congress of Radiology, and Western Neuroradiological Society.

    He is a member of the Society of Neurointerventional Surgery.