Dr. Dean Chou is the Bennett M. Stein Professor of Neurosurgery. He is the Chief of the Spine Division and Vice Chair of Department of Neurosurgery at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Chou has many years of experience and expertise in scoliosis, spinal deformity, spinal tumors, and degenerative conditions of the spine. He has pioneered many minimally invasive surgical techniques to treat these complex conditions, and is also an expert in traditional open surgery. When possible, he uses the least-invasive treatment techniques, providing an individualized, thoughtful approach to every patient.

Dr. Chou attended medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, completed his residency in Neurosurgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and undertook a fellowship in complex spinal surgery at The Barrow Neurological Institute under one of the legendary pioneers of spine surgery, Dr. Volker Sonntag. He is board certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery.

Prior to Columbia, he was on faculty at the University of California of San Francisco, rising to the rank of full Professor of Neurosurgery and Orthopedics, and eventually the Associate Director of the UCSF Neurospine Center. He is a Castle Connolly Top Doctor and has been elected by his peers for 10 consecutive years to the "Best Doctors in America" list, according to Best Doctors, Inc.

Dr. Chou has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications in a wide variety of neurosurgery and spine journals. He sits on the editorial boards of the following journals; Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, Neurosurgery, and PLOS ONE. He is on the advisory board of the journal, Spine. He serves as Treasurer and on the Board of Directors for the Lumbar Spine Research Society (LSRS) and serves on the Membership Committee for the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS). He also sits on the Executive and Scientific Program Committees of the AANS/Congress of Neurosurgeons Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves, and he has served as an abstract reviewer for many organized meetings. He is a two-time recipient of the Harold Rosegay Resident Teaching Award and has been awarded the Alumni Achievement Award from The Johns Hopkins Department of Neurosurgery. He has served as abstract reviewer and faculty member for such organizations as the Scoliosis Research Society (SRS), the North American Spine Society (NASS), the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), the AANS, the LSRS, the Global Spine Congress, and the International Meeting for Advanced Spinal Techniques (IMAST).