Ian Pollack, MD, is chief of pediatric neurosurgery at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He is the A. Leland Albright Professor of Neurosurgery and vice-chair for Academic Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is professor of clinical and translational science and distinguished professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Pollack graduated magna cum laude from Emory University in 1980, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry. He received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1984. Dr. Pollack completed a surgical internship and neurosurgical residency at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he was a research fellow in neuropathology and neurobiology.
Prior to joining the faculty of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh in 1992, Dr. Pollack was awarded the 1991 Van Wagenen Traveling Fellowship, which afforded him a year of subspecialty training in pediatric neurosurgery and neuro-oncology research at the Department of Neurosurgery at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, the Neuro-Oncology Laboratory of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and the Laboratory of Tumor Biology of the University of Uppsala in Sweden.
Dr. Pollack’s areas of interest include general pediatric neurosurgery, pediatric neuro-oncology, craniofacial surgery, congenital spinal abnormalities, and brain tumor clinical trials. Dr. Pollack has published more than 370 papers in refereed journals, numerous book chapters and invited papers, and has edited three books on childhood brain tumors. He is co-editor of Principles and Practice of Pediatric Neurosurgery—currently in its third edition—and an accompanying atlas Operative Techniques in Pediatric Neurosurgery, as well as Brain and Spinal Tumors of Childhood. He has had continuous NIH funding since 1995, serving as a principal investigator on NIH grants focusing on novel therapies for brain tumors, brain tumor immunotherapy, and evaluating molecular markers of tumor prognosis.
Dr. Pollack chaired the UPMC Children’s Oncology Group CNS Tumor Committee from 1999-2009, co-chaired the National Cancer Institute Brain Malignancy Steering Committee between 2010 and 2017, and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium.
