Dennis Choi, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor and Chair, Department of Neurology; Director of Neurosciences Institute, Stony Brook University School of Medicine 


Chair of the Department of Neurology, Stony Brook University & Director of the Institute for Advanced Neurosciences

Dr. Choi received his Medical Degree from the combined Harvard University / Massachusetts Institute of Technology joint Health Sciences and Technology Program, as well as a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Harvard. He is Board Certified in Neurology and holds additional specialty certification from the American Board of Clinical Neurophysiology and the American Board of Electrodiagnostic Medicine.

Dr. Choi began his academic career at Stanford University, soon being promoted to Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences. In 1991, he moved to Washington University where he was appointed the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and Head of Neurology, and Neurologist-in-Chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, in St. Louis, MO. While at Washington University Dr. Choi served as the Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Nervous System Injury (now endowed as the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders), and the Director of the McDonnell Center for Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology. In 2001, Dr. Choi became Executive Vice President for Neurosciences at Merck Research Labs. In 2006 he returned to academia, and in 2007 he was appointed the Executive Director of the Comprehensive Neurosciences Initiative at Emory University, later serving as Vice President for Academic Health Affairs of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center at Emory. For the past two years, Dr. Choi has served as Executive Vice President of the Simons Foundation in New York.

Dr. Choi is highly sought for his scientific insights, serving on numerous NIH and governmental advisory committees, including the advisory council of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and, more recently, the advisory council of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academy of Science and the Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders of the Institute of Medicine. Dennis also has provided insights to non-governmental scientific institutes, including the Max-Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany, the Grass Foundation, the Hereditary Disease Foundation, and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

In addition to his prodigious contributions to the literature of neurological disorders, Dr. Choi has served as the Founding Co-Editor of Neurobiology of Disease and a senior editor of Brain Research, as well as serving on the editorial boards of over 25 distinct scientific journals.

During his distinguished career, Dr. Choi has received numerous awards, including the Christopher Reeve Research Medal and the Ho-Am Prize in Medical Science. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, served as president of the Society for Neuroscience, and was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.