Joshua B. Bederson

Joshua B. Bederson is an American neurosurgeon specializing in skull-base and cerebrovascular surgery. He is the Leonard I. Malis, MD/Corinne and Joseph Graber Professor of Neurosurgery and System Chair of Neurosurgery at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. He is also co-founder and Executive Director of Mount Sinai BioDesign, a biomedical innovation and surgical technology incubator within the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Bederson is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

His clinical expertise includes surgical treatment of skull-base pathology and cerebrovascular disorders, including meningiomas of all types, trigeminal neuralgia, pituitary tumors, acoustic neuromas, Chiari malformations, cavernous malformations, hemifacial spasms, spinal cord tumors, neurofibromatosis, Cushing's disease, craniopharyngiomas, intracerebral hemorrhage, brain aneurysms, hydrocephalus, and subdural hematomas.

Bederson has performed more than 6,500 neurosurgical procedures at Mount Sinai and has authored 237 publications.

Education and post-doctoral training Bederson graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University in 1979 with a degree in psychology, where he was the Ivy League Gymnastics All-Around Champion for three consecutive seasons from 1976 to 1978. He earned his Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He was a member of USCF's Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society.

In 1984, Bederson took a year away from medical training to study sculpture in New York University's Master's program, and to exhibit his artwork, while simultaneously conducting medical research.

He completed his surgical internship and neurosurgical residency at UCSF between 1984 and 1990. During residency, Bederson received the Henry B. Newman Award from the San Francisco Neurological Society and the Resident Award from the International Microsurgical Society in 1986.

His postgraduate subspecialty training included a neuropathology fellowship at the University of Torino in Italy in 1987, an advanced microvascular fellowship training under Gazi Yaşargil, at Zurich University Hospital in Switzerland, and a cerebrovascular surgery fellowship at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, under Robert F. Spetzler.

Career Bederson joined Mount Sinai Medical Center in 1992 as its first dedicated cerebrovascular neurosurgeon. Bederson founded the institution's Cerebrovascular Disorders Clinical Program, establishing the first basic science laboratory within Mount Sinai's Department of Neurosurgery, developing experimental models of stroke and subarachnoid hemorrhage. In 2002, he became the first neurosurgeon at The Mount Sinai Hospital to receive a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grant as principal investigator.

He served as Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery from 1992 to 1996, Associate Professor from 1996 to 2001, and Professor of Neurosurgery beginning in 2001. From 2002 to 2008, he also served as Director of the Neurosurgery Residency Program. In 2001, Bederson was appointed Vice Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Mount Sinai Health System, a role he held until 2008, when he became System Chair of Neurosurgery.

Bederson co-founded the Skull Base Surgery Center at Mount Sinai, dedicated to the evaluation and treatment of benign and malignant tumors of the skull base.

Under Bederson's leadership, the Department of Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has expanded to become the third-largest neurosurgery department in the United States by faculty size and the seventh-largest by surgical volume. Since 2020, the department has consecutively ranked #1 in New York State for NIH funding in neurosurgery.

In 2015, Bederson served as the President of the New York Society of the New York Society for Neurosurgery, and in 2006, he was appointed Chair of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurosurgeons Cerebrovascular Section. In 2019, Bederson was honored at the AANS Annual Scientific Meeting as the Cerebrovascular Section's M. Gazi Yasargil Lecturer. Bederson was Chair of the American Heart Association's Writing Group, publishing the guidelines on subarachnoid hemorrhage and stroke treatment. He is also a member of the Society of Neurological Surgery.

Bederson received the Mount Sinai Health System's Jacobi Medallion in 2020, one of the institution's highest faculty honors. In 1990, he received the John R. Greene Research Award from the Arizona Neurological Society. In 2004, he was recognized by the Cornell University Class of 1979 with a distinguished alumni award. He has been recognized since 2009 as a Top Doctor by Castle Connolly and New York Magazine.

Mount Sinai BioDesign and Neurotechnology In 2015, Bederson launched Mount Sinai's Brain Neurosurgery Simulation Core to develop advanced surgical training and simulation technologies. It evolved into Mount Sinai BioDesign in 2017, co-founded by Bederson and Anthony Costa, within the Department of Neurosurgery. Mount Sinai BioDesign supports startup formation, patent development, surgical simulation platforms, neurotechnology research, and translational biomedical innovation. The program has led to the development of spinout companies, including PharyVac Surgical Technology, MitralPrint, and Monogram Orthopedics, which originated within Mount Sinai BioDesign before becoming independent entities. It has also supported the development of clinical trials, user-feedback studies, U.S. Food and Drug Administration submissions, and novel algorithms through collaborations with organizations including Elementa Labs, Precision Neuroscience Laboratories, Mount Sinai Innovation Partners, and the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute.

Led by Bederson, Mount Sinai BioDesign was awarded an $11.6 million grant in 2022 from the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) to establish the Comprehensive Center for Surgical Innovation (CCSI), focused on the development and commercialization of surgical technologies. The center's grand opening is scheduled for summer 2026.

On November 2, 2023, at The Mount Sinai Hospital, Bederson led the first clinical use of the Modus X robotic exoscope system for neurosurgery.

In 2024, in collaboration with the brain-computer interface (BCI) company Precision Neuroscience, Bederson set a world record using four 1,024-electrode arrays (4,096 electrodes total) to record from the human brain. The following year, he became the first to implant Precision Neuroscience's device for extended postoperative use in brain mapping and testing, following U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for postoperative monitoring of up to 30 days.

Forbes recognized Bederson as a leader in BCI following his establishment of the annual New York BCI Symposium, hosted by Mount Sinai BioDesign and the Department of Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and held at the New York Academy of Medicine. He served as moderator for the inaugural meetings in 2024 and 2025, which featured presentations and panel discussions from experts in neurosurgery, neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and federal regulatory agencies.

Bederson participated in a Mount Sinai panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2024 exploring the current state of BCIs, their applications, and the future of the technology.

Personal life Bederson is the son of Benjamin Bederson, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project.

During his surgical internship, Bederson met and married Isabelle M. Germano, who is Professor of Neurosurgery, Neurology, Oncological Sciences, Radiation Oncology, and Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. They have two daughters who are both physicians.