Uzma Samadani

Uzma Samadani, MD, PhD is a neurosurgeon and brain injury researcher at Hennepin County Medical Center, the largest level one trauma center in the state of Minnesota and one of the busiest in the United States, with a catchment area extending west to the Dakotas, east to Wisconsin, south to Iowa and north to Lake Superior. She moved to Minneapolis in 2015 and was named to Minneapolis St-Paul Magazine’s “Top Doctors in Neurosurgery” lists in 2016 and 2017.

She serves as the Rockswold Kaplan Endowed Chair for Traumatic Brain Injury at Hennepin County Medical Center and as an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota. She is also an attending neurosurgeon at the Minneapolis Veterans Administration Medical Center and founder of the neurodiagnostic start-up Oculogica Inc.

She is on the Executive Committee of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons Joint Section on Neurotrauma and Critical Care and serves as Scientific Program Chair for their meeting in conjunction with the National Neurotrauma Society. She also serves on the board of ThinkFirst Foundation, a brain injury prevention organization. She currently chairs the Minnesota State Traumatic Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Research Program. She is a Past-President of Women in Neurosurgery.

Dr. Samadani has received more than three million dollars in research grants from national and international competitive funding agencies to study diagnostics, risks, outcomes and treatments for brain injury. She has been funded by the United States Veterans Administration, National Space and Biomedical Research Institute, Abbott Diagnostic Laboratories, American College of Surgeons, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Thrasher Research Fund, Integra, the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation and several other organizations.

She is certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgeons and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Her research on brain injury has been discussed in the New York Times, LeMonde, LeFigaro, Wired, Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, and Minneapolis Star Tribune as well as numerous other media sources. She has been a speaker at TedMed, the North American Brain Injury Society, National Neurotrauma Society, American Association of Neurological Surgeons meeting and multiple other conferences. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific papers and an additional 30 reviews and chapters including in the Journal of Neurotrauma, JAMA Neurology, Journal of Neurosurgery and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Samadani also serves as an unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant to the National Football League.