Eric K. Oermann, MD

Medicine is the most human science, and neurosurgery is the branch of medicine that deals most intimately with what makes us human. I’ve always wanted to be a scientist and to study what makes us “us”; I’ve also always wanted to work in a field that does good in the world. As a neurosurgeon–scientist, I get to do both—I treat neurological conditions and study how the brain works.

I trained under the legendary physician–philosopher and NYU School of Medicine alumnus Edmund D. Pellegrino, MD, who taught me that the single most important thing in medicine is the physician–patient relationship. My belief in finding and doing what is right for patients is guided by his wisdom.

As a neurosurgeon who is also an expert on artificial intelligence (AI), I not only deliver world-class clinical care, but also employ the latest AI technologies to help care for my patients. I treat patients with any type of neurological condition, but I am particularly interested in tumors of the brain and spine. I perform and am interested in a wide range of neurosurgical procedures, including minimally invasive cranial surgery using endoscopy, stereotactic radiosurgery, and laser interstitial thermal therapy. 

During my neurosurgical residency, I completed a postdoctoral fellowship in machine learning at Verily Life Sciences, the life science research organization of Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. It was during this fellowship that I developed a major interest in using machine learning to solve practical problems in medicine to take care of patients. I believe that medical machine learning can provide us with cost-effective, scalable solutions to some of the biggest challenges in healthcare, and that one of the most rewarding experiences as a computer scientist is to use code for care.

In addition to this focus on applied mathematics, I am interested in improving both artificial and human intelligence, and interfacing the two. I believe that investigations into the nature of AI and human intelligence are fundamentally the same question, and that by attempting to build a general AI, we will discover fundamental insights into the key mechanisms behind human intelligence.

I am a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons, and I am the co-founder of the Medical AI Research Collaboration Hub (MARCH), a year-long international educational and research development program aimed to guide students and researchers along medical AI projects. I am also a member of the clinical advisory board of several technology companies.

I have received numerous awards as a physician and AI researcher during the course of my training, and I am extremely proud to have been recognized as one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30 in Science and Healthcare” while I was a resident.