Hailing from Flint, Michigan, Luke Tomycz attended Powers Catholic High School and finished first in his class of over 200 students. A national merit scholar and all-state tennis athlete, he then attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge where he double-majored in biology and chemical engineering. After college he was awarded the prestigious Dean’s Full-Tuition Scholarship to attend medical school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he first developed an interest in neurosurgery. Dr. Tomycz commenced his formal neurosurgical training at Vanderbilt University where he was mentored by the late Noel Tulipan, MD, a pioneer in fetal surgery for myelomeningocele. During residency he spent two years obtaining a fellowship in neuro-endovascular surgery, becoming proficient in the treatment of aneurysms, AVMs, and complex dural AV fistulae of adults and children. He spent an additional year at Seattle Children’s Hospital performing a large volume of complex epilepsy surgery with Jeff Ojemann, MD as part of a post-graduate pediatric neurosurgery fellowship. His first three years of practice were spent in Austin, TX where he did a combination of open vascular and endovascular surgery on adults as well as the full gamut of pediatric neurosurgery at Dell Children’s Medical Center, a pediatric level-one trauma center.
Dr. Tomycz specializes in all aspects of pediatric neurosurgery including brain tumors, epilepsy, spinal deformity, Chiari malformation, tethered cord syndrome, CSF shunting, and intracranial endoscopy. As one of the only dual-trained, pediatric and endovascular neurosurgeons in the country, he is particularly interested in moya-moya disease, brain aneurysms and AVMs, arteriovenous fistulae, and other complex neurovascular disorders in children as well as adults. His current research interests include the use of engineering innovations to improve treatments for hydrocephalus, and he has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on a wide variety of neurosurgical topics. He was asked to curate and edit a special edition on hydrocephalus for the journal Pediatric Neurosurgery, and in the past year he has been invited to speak nationally and internationally at neurosurgical conferences. He was recently elected to be a member of the AANS/CNS Young Neurosurgeons committee.
Outside the operating room, Luke enjoys reading and writing, playing guitar, and hiking in the mountains. He has travelled extensively to perform neurosurgery, taking part in short-term medical mission work in Cuba, Kenya, Honduras, Ecuador, and Ukraine. In 2016, he and his wife, Mariya, launched the Co-Pilot Project, an initiative of Razom for Ukraine (501c3) which seeks to raise the level of neurosurgical training in Ukraine.
