Bio
Dr. David J. Park is a neurosurgeon specializing in neurosurgical oncology, skull base surgery, and radiosurgery. He has extensive international training and expertise in minimally invasive techniques, including Gamma Knife and CyberKnife stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), as well as laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT). Dr. Park completed neurosurgical clinical fellowships at leading institutions such as Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital in South Korea, the National Neuroscience Institute in Singapore, Massachusetts General Hospital, North Shore University Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, and Stanford University. He is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University, focusing on brain tumors (neurosurgical oncology) and radiosurgery. His research interests include fluorescence-guided surgery, endoscopic minimally invasive techniques, bioengineering in medical devices, stem cell therapies for glioma, and the role of fatty acids in glioblastoma.
[Detailed Background]
Dr. David Park graduated from medical school at the Catholic University of Korea in Seoul, South Korea. He completed his internship and residency in neurosurgery at Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, becoming a board-certified neurosurgeon in South Korea in 2014. He then pursued a two-year fellowship at the same hospital, specializing in skull base surgery, with a particular focus on minimally invasive techniques such as endoscopic approaches. During his residency, he simultaneously attended graduate school and successfully defended his PhD thesis in 2015, titled “Combination therapy for gliomas using Temozolomide and Interferon-beta secreting human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells.”
Following his initial two-year clinical fellowship in South Korea, Dr. Park expanded his expertise internationally, serving as a Clinical fellow at the National Neuroscience Institute in Singapore in 2016, with a focus on neurosurgical oncology, skull base surgery, and functional neurosurgery.
In 2017, he joined Dr. Christian Badr’s lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, as a postdoc research fellow. His research focused on translational studies in glioblastoma, particularly investigating the role of fatty acids and lipid metabolism in tumor progression.
During this time, Dr. Park also ventured into medical innovation, developing an intraoperative diagnostic tool for tumor detection during glioma surgery. He collaborated with bioengineers at MIT to develop a prototype and secured seed funding from the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund Program—a project he continues to develop as an alumnus of the program.
In 2020, Dr. Park pursued a clinical fellowship in Neurosurgical Oncology and Radiosurgery at North Shore University Hospital, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, where he trained under Dr. Michael Schulder in brain tumor surgery, including advanced techniques such as LITT and SRS.
From July 2021 to June 2022, he completed an additional clinical fellowship in Neurosurgical Oncology and Radiosurgery at the Cleveland Clinic, focusing on minimally invasive neurosurgical techniques, including LITT, Gamma Knife SRS, and Awake brain tumor surgery, under the mentorship of Drs. Gene Barnett, Lilyana Angelov, and Ali Mohammadi.
In July 2022, Dr. Park joined the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University as a Clinical Instructor, working primarily with Dr. Steven D. Chang in neurosurgical oncology and CyberKnife SRS. As of July 2024, he has been promoted to Clinical Assistant Professor and is actively engaged in both clinical care and research.
