Levy named president-elect of Congress of Neurological Surgeons

Elad I. Levy, professor and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB, has been named president-elect of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS).

The CNS is a partner organization for neurosurgeons, trainees and industry innovators in neurosurgical disease, advancing the global practice of neurosurgery by inspiring and facilitating scientific discovery and its translation to clinical practice. Through myriad resources, the organization supports neurosurgical professionals through all stages of their career.   

As a clinician and researcher, Levy integrates numerous fields of study and involves partners from other disciplines, with the goal of improving treatment for patients.

He has been a primary investigator in several clinical international research studies on carotid artery revascularization and stents, and served as the national interventional principal investigator for the SWIFT PRIME trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

He has been a principal investigator on national and international stroke trials, and has focused on what causes strokes, partnering with aerospace engineers to help understand how blood flow patterns share characteristics with airflow.

Levy and his colleagues earned Food and Drug Administration approval for the first prospective trial to test the usage of stents in the human brain to prevent acute ischemic strokes.

With a national and global reputation in the field of neurovascular disease, Levy has co-authored more than 500 peer-reviewed publications and co-authored several books on neurovascular disease.

At UB, Levy has trained more than 40 endovascular fellows in complex endovascular neurosurgical techniques, many of whom now hold leadership positions in academic institutions around the world.

He became professor of neurosurgery and radiology at UB in 2010 and was appointed chair of the Department of Neurosurgery in 2013. He was named the L. Nelson Hopkins, MD, Professor Endowed Chair of Neurosurgery in 2016.

A neurosurgeon with UBMD Neurosurgery, Levy also is co-director of the Gates Stroke Center and Cerebrovascular Surgery at Kaleida Health, and director of endovascular stroke treatment and research medical director of neuroendovascular services at Gates Vascular Institute.

A fellow of the American College of Surgeons, as well as a fellow of the American Heart Association, Levy was appointed one of 12 national directors of the American Board of Neurological Surgery in 2017, where he was instrumental in establishing a pathway for exceptional foreign-trained neurosurgeons to become certified by the ABNS.

He founded the nonprofit organization Program for Understanding Childhood Concussion and Stroke, which advances education and research in youth concussions and stroke, and has helped raise $500,000 to fund concussion research and education in Western New York.

Levy earned his BS in molecular biology/biochemistry from Dartmouth College and an MD from George Washington University School of Medicine. He did his residency from 1997 to 2004 at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, followed by a fellowship at UB. He also holds an MBA from Northeastern University.