John Harper Seeley Professor of Neurological Surgery
University of Chicago
Issam Awad is The John Harper Seeley Professor of Neurological Sciences, Professor of Neurological Surgery, Neurology, the Grossman Institute of Neuroscience, Quantitative Biology and Human Behavior, and the Committee on Neurobiology at the University of Chicago Medicine, and is tenured in the Biological Sciences Division. He is also a Senior Faculty Scholar at the Bucksbaum institute for Clinical Excellence, Director of the Safadi Program of Excellence in Clinical and Translational Neurosciences, and he directs the Neurovascular Surgery Program and the Angioma Alliance CCM and the Cure HHT Centers of Excellence at the University of Chicago Hospitals. He has worked in academia for more than 35 years, holding endowed or tenured professorships at Yale, Colorado and Northwestern before relocating 12 years ago to the University of Chicago. He is widely recognized for career long contributions and special skills in Neurovascular Surgery. He has made numerous scientific discoveries including the characterization of subcortical ischemic lesions in the aged, advances in the understanding of the natural history and biologic behavior of vascular malformations of the brain, and technical developments in neurovascular and epilepsy surgery. His research has been funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health since 1998, focusing currently on molecular mechanisms of cerebral vascular malformations and their biomarkers and therapeutic targets, and minimally invasive surgical techniques for hemorrhagic stroke. Awad’s innovations are changing neurosurgical practice, and he has trained scores of neurosurgeons, some of whom are leading neurosurgical departments in a number of countries. His scholarly work has been cited more than 81,000 times (H-Index 90). Dr Awad has served in leadership roles at several national professional societies, including as President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Chairman of the Joint Cerebrovascular Section of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Governor of the American College of Surgeons, and the Executive Committee of the American Stroke Association. He is the Founding Chairman of the Angioma alliance Scientific Advisory Board. Awad was elected to the American Academy of Neurological Surgery and the Society of Neurological Surgeons, and was inducted in 2018 to the Association of American Physicians. He served from 2016 to 2020 on the U.S. National Advisory Council for Neurological Disorders and Stroke.