Neurosurgery Clinical Instructors and Fellow

Ahmed was born in Kansas and lived in Manhattan, “The Little Apple,” for a few years before his family moved to Germany and then to Palestine, where he attended the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of An-Najah National University. This is where he developed an interest in neurosurgery and neuroscience research and volunteered for several neurosurgery humanitarian medical missions.

After graduating from medical school and completing an internship year, he moved back to the U.S., where he received extensive research experience and collaborated with several institutions across the country.

Ahmed comes to Stanford after he completed neurosurgery residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) where he developed interest in functional and stereotactic neurosurgery under the mentorship of Dr. Peter Pahapill. Throughout his residency training, he was awarded several nationally competitive research grants including the NREF and published extensively in this field.

Matei was born and raised in Bucharest, Romania. Prior to starting his residency, he pursued two neurosurgery research fellowships, at Weill Cornell Medical College under the guidance of Dr. John Boockvar and Dr. Theodore Schwartz and at Columbia University under the mentorship of Dr. Jeffrey Bruce and Dr. Peter Canoll. Matei pursued neurosurgical training at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. During his residency he received the NREF & AANS/CNS Section on Tumors Research Fellowship Grant and an NIH R38 StARR training grant to study the impact of ferroptosis in brain tumors.

Matei’s overall career goal is to become an academic neurosurgeon focused on complex cranial and skull base approaches and a principal investigator of an NIH funded translational laboratory, working to develop new therapeutic strategies for tumors of the brain and skull base. Matei is married to Maria, a medicinal chemist at Merck.

Jinendra undertook his medical training at Kings College London School of Medicine and Dentistry, including an intercalated BSc in Neuropharmacology. He completed his neurosurgical residency at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, with an infolded Wellcome Trust PhD Clinical Fellowship at University College London under Professor Geraint Rees.

Specializing in vascular microsurgery, Jinendra focuses on aneurysm clipping, AVM resection, and revascularization, holding subspecialty certification in neurovascular surgery from the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He has designed a surgical handle system for aneurysm clipping including a high degree-of-freedom aneurysm clip.

Academically, he investigates and develops interventional technologies for brain recovery and neuroimaging, including implantable interfaces, real-time fMRI and biophotonics. He has contributed to policy development for brain-computer interfaces, with input to the UK Chief Medical Officer’s report ‘Health 2040: Better Healthcare within Reach’ and reports for the UK Houses of Parliament and the Royal Society’s working group on neural interfaces (‘iHuman – Blurring the line between mind and machine’).

Before Stanford, Jinendra served as an attending neurosurgeon at the National Guard Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Dr Frantzias was born in Cyprus and moved to Edinburgh where he attended medical school. He completed his neurosurgical residency in London, UK. During residency training, his research was focused on subarachnoid hemorrhage and spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage. He also completed a Masters degree in neuroimaging. As a clinical instructor, Joseph will work with Dr Steinberg in open cerebrovascular procedures including treating aneurysms, arterio-venous malformations and moyamoya disease. He enjoys running, swimming, reading non-fiction, and traveling.

Dr. Hori received his MD from Sapporo Medical University, Japan, and during that time he served as a Medical Student Research Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology. He explored the functional role of the SIRT1 gene, a longevity-associated gene, and its association with various conditions such as muscular dystrophy. He also completed a Visiting Student Research Fellowship at the Health Sciences University of Hokkaido and participated in Human Genetics projects focusing on an association between the 27-bp deletion and 538G>A mutation in the ABCC11 Gene.

After graduating from medical school, Dr. Hori completed a neurosurgery residency at National Hospital Organization Okayama Medical Center in Japan. Subsequently, he completed a Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery Fellowship and then a Neurosurgical Oncology and Radiosurgery Fellowship at The Cleveland Clinic. He also completed an International Neurosurgery Fellowship at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School. In 2022, he moved to Stanford University as a postdoctoral fellow, and under the supervision of Dr. Anca Pasca, he participated in brain organoid research focusing on hypoxic brain injuries.

Since July 2023, Dr. Hori has been working as a Clinical Instructor (Neurosurgical Oncology and Radiosurgery) in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford under the supervision of Drs. Steven D. Chang and Antonio Meola. His clinical interests include malignant brain and spine tumors in both adult and pediatric patients. His clinical research focuses on the application of minimally invasive treatments such as laser interstitial thermal therapy, focused ultrasound, and radiosurgery to treat various neurosurgical conditions. His current lab research aims to develop an organoid model for radiation-induced brain injuries and a high-throughput screening platform to identify novel therapeutic compounds, for which he received a Clinician Educator Grant from Stanford University Maternal and Child Health Research Institute. Outside of medicine, he enjoys playing music including guitar and drums.

Fred is a Canadian board-certified neurosurgeon with a PhD in neuroscience. He obtained his neurosurgical fellowship training at Harvard Medical School specializing in tumors of the brain and spine. Fred then pursued postdoctoral research in cancer biology, DNA damage, and epigenetics at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT studying the use of nanotechnology and precision medicine approaches for the treatment of brain tumors.

Prior to coming to Stanford, he was a junior attending neurosurgeon at Saint Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, with a clinical and research focus on the neurosurgical treatment of patients with primary and metastatic brain and spine tumors. He is honored to be a Clinical Instructor in the SRS and neurosurgical oncology program at Stanford Neurosurgery and am excited to be learning from the Stanford Neurosurgery faculty.

Dennis grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Princeton University where he studied neuroscience, molecular biology, and biophysics. He completed his medical training and residency in neurosurgery at NYU Langone Grossman School of Medicine. Dennis’ focus is on neuromodulation and the surgical treatment of movement disorders, epilepsy, and neuropsychiatric disorders. At NYU, with Dr. Alon Mogilner and Dr. Roozbeh Kiani, Dennis performed combined electrophysiological and behavioral research in patients undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery. His goal is to determine how the brain plans, executes, and flexibly changes our actions. Ultimately, he hopes to understand the function of neurologic circuitry to design closed-loop neuromodulation systems and brain-computer interfaces to treat patients with neurologic and psychiatric disorders.

Dennis is an avid skier, runner, and history buff.

Paul completed his medical degree at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He did his neurosurgery residency at the Western General Hospital and Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and is board-certified in neurosurgery by the General Medical Council of the UK. He was previously a research fellow with V.S. Ramachandran and his central pain, the neurological basis of body image and the brain’s role in controlling energy homeostasis. He is one of two cofounders of Neurovalens, a noninvasive medical device company.

Ali Palejwala, MD, was born and raised in San Antonio, TX. He attended Southern Methodist University, graduating summa cum laude with a BS in mathematics. He obtained his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine. He then completed his residency at the University of Oklahoma, where he was awarded the Resident Teaching Award and Harry Wilkins Neurosurgery Award in 2021. He was elected into Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Medical Honor Society in 2022. During residency, he studied white matter connectivity of the brain, and described the anatomy of many tracts within the cerebrum. He is a member of both the American Association of Neurolgoical Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. His clinical interests include both neuro-oncology and skull base.

Sanjeev was born in Chandigarh, India. He did his medical school and General Surgery Residency at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER), in Puducherry, India. He then pursued his Neurosurgical residency at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. His research dissertation focused on clinical and angiographic outcomes of direct and indirect revascularization procedures on patients with Moyamoya disease.

He has worked as an attending consultant in Neurosurgery in India till June 2022. He completed a clinical research fellowship in Cerebrovascular & Endovascular Neurosurgery at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Rutgers, New Jersey in June 2023, where the focus of his research was on clinical outcomes of patients with cerebral aneurysms and ischemic stroke. He has completed a clinical fellowship in Neurosurgical Oncology at NorthShore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New York, where in addition to performing neurosurgical procedures for high grade and low-grade CNS tumors, he also participated in clinical trials directed towards management of primary and recurrent glioblastomas. As part of the fellowship, he participated in administration of stereotactic radiosurgery for various neurosurgical conditions.

As a clinical instructor, Sanjeev will work with Dr. Steinberg in open cerebrovascular procedures including treating aneurysms, arterio-venous malformations, cavernous malformations and moyamoya disease.

He is married to Neha Agarwal, who is a trained OBGYN pursuing maternal-fetal medicine in University of Texas Health, Houston. In his spare time, he enjoys reading non-fiction, listening to music, traveling, and working out.

Laura is a neurosurgeon who completed her medical education at Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio. She then completed her neurosurgical residency at The Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina. During her residency training, she focused her research interests on spinal deformity biomechanical testing. Her current clinical and research interests include minimally invasive spine surgery as well as degenerative and complex spine surgery. Laura plans to serve as a Clinical Instructor and complete her fellowship in complex spine from 2024-2025 with Dr. Jon Park and Dr. John Ratliff at Stanford University.

Outside of neurosurgery, Dr. Wolgamott enjoys backpacking, hiking, and sport climbing. She participates in several book clubs and stays active at the gym.