About

Dr. Aaron Cohen-Gadol, MD, MSc, MBA is the President and the founder of The Neurosurgical Atlas. He performed his undergraduate and medical school trainings at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and University of Southern California (USC), respectively. He then completed his residency training at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He also completed fellowship training in two subspecialties: Epilepsy surgery (Yale University) and skull base/cerebrovascular surgery (University of Arkansas.) Dr. Cohen has a Masters Degree in Clinical Research. He also completed an MBA degree from the Kelley School of Business.

His areas of interest include surgical treatment of complex intracranial tumors and vascular lesions. He is a professor at Indiana University Department of Neurosurgery and Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine. He is also the director of neurosurgical oncology and its fellowship, and co-director of the Neurological Tumors Signature Center at the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center.

His clinical research interests include neurosurgical operative anatomy, innovative operative approaches to deep lesions, and intraoperative fluorescence/mass spectroscopy. His basic science research is focused on novel drug therapies for glioblastoma. He has published over 400 publications on the aforementioned topics.

For more information on Dr. Cohen, please see his CV in this PDF. Please refer to this editorial in the Journal of Neurosurgery on the work related to the Altas.

Dr. Benjamin K. Hendricks, MD is a neurosurgery resident at the Barrow Neurological Institute and a major contributor to the content within The Neurosurgical Atlas. He oversees the strategic planning for the Atlas projects. Ben's leadership and expertise have been instrumental to our success. He is also an executive member of the Board of Directors of the Atlas.

He is from Indiana and attended medical school at Indiana University School of Medicine. He has future career interests in the area of microsurgical and interventional cerebrovascular disease, neurosurgical education, and neurosurgical oncology.

Dr. Tao Xu, MD, PhD is an attending neurosurgeon at Changzheng Hospital, Navy Medical University, Shanghai, China. He is the major driving force to make the Atlas translation to Chinese language possible.  His immense contributions have made the Atlas available to our Chinese colleagues and have advanced neurosurgical training in China.  

He graduated from the Navy Medical University and finished his residency in Changzheng Hospital. He also completed fellowship training in skull base surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical college. His clinical interests include skull base surgery, neurosurgical oncology and neurosurgical education.

Jared Travnicek, MA, CMI received his M.A. in Medical and Biological Illustration from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and his B.A. in Biological and Pre-medical Illustration from Iowa State University. He has worked as an illustrator for Oxford University Press, Journal of Neurosurgery, Iowa State University School of Veterinary Medicine, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and Rolin Graphics Inc.

He is an active member of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) and has received several honors including a Vesalius Trust Research Grant and the Cheaster Reather Award for Innovative Use of Digital Imaging along with multiple awards from the annual AMI salon. He is also a Certified Medical Illustrator (CMI).

Marilyn Michael Yurk has more than 30 years of experience as a medical writer and editor. She served as managing editor of the Stroke, senior editor at the Indiana University Department of Neurosurgery, and as a free-lance editor for a number of different journals. Her editorial efforts have transformed the readability of this Atlas to a new level.