Biography:
Elected: 2004. JOSHUA B. BEDERSON, MD, Professor and System Chair of the Mount Sinai Health System's Department of Neurosurgery, is a skull base and cerebrovascular surgeon and is a leader in developing advanced intraoperative applications of digital visualization technologies and augmented reality. As System Chair, he has led the department to become one of the fastest growing and increasingly respected neurosurgery programs in the nation. Dr. Bederson serves as Co-Director of the Skull Base Surgery Center and Pituitary Care and Research Center, and has performed more than 4,000 neurosurgical operations at Mount Sinai. Born in 1957 in New York and grew up in the Larchmont, a suburb of the City. Dr. Bederson is the son of a physicist father and a psychoanalyst mother. He pursued interests developed in grade school of both gymnastics and sculpture. In high school, he captained his gymnastics team, and at Cornell University he was the Ivy League All-Around Champion for three years as well as a Phi Beta Kappa graduate. Dr. Bederson attended medical school at University of California San Francisco where he began neuroscience research in cerebral ischemia. Taking time off from medical school to study sculpture in the master's program at New York University, he was still motivated to publish his first two papers on stroke-and at the end of the year, have a solo show of his sculptures at a gallery in New York. He returned to San Francisco to finish medical school where he was elected to AOA and stayed on to complete his residency under Charles Wilson, MD. While a resident, he did a fellowship in Italy at the University of Torino under Davide Fisher, MD. Six months in Zurich and Slovenia with M. Gazi Yasargil, MD and Vinco Dolenc, MD and were followed by a cerebrovascular fellowship with Robert Spetzler, MD and one year at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Dr. Bederson joined Mount Sinai and founded the Cerebrovascular Disorders Clinical Program in 1992, where he established the first basic science laboratory in the Department of Neurosurgery. He developed models of stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage and became the first Mount Sinai neurosurgeon to receive an NIH-RO1 as principal investigator. His academic activities have led to more than 130 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Bederson was appointed Vice Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery and Neurosurgery Residency Director in 2001. An advocate for cross department cooperation, he fostered collaborative efforts with Mount Sinai's Neurology Stroke Program, Otolaryngology Skull Base and Otology programs, The Tisch Cancer Institute, and Translational Neuroscience Center. He was appointed Chair of Neurosurgery in 2008. Dr. Bederson is a leader in neurosurgical technology development. Dr. Bederson co-founded the Neurosurgery Simulation Core, a digital technology research group dedicated to developing augmented and virtual reality for clinical neurosurgery application. His successful innovation leadership has led to the creation of Sinai BioDesign, a neuroscience-driven medical device incubator, and AISINAI, a group of scientists, physicians, and researchers dedicated to developing artificial intelligence platforms to enhance patient care. Dr. Bederson's fostering of neurosurgical innovation contributed to the development of the new Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute, launching in 2021 with The Hamilton and Amabel James Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health. Dr. Bederson has lectured across the globe on cerebrovascular and skull base surgery, technology development and innovation in brain surgery, and on systems of neurosurgery care delivery in large urban health care environments. He has served as President of the New York Society for Neurosurgery and Chair of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurosurgeons Cerebrovascular Section. In 2019, Dr. Bederson was honored as the distinguished M. Gazi Yasargil Lecturer at the Cerebrovascular Section of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting.