Peter Black, M.D. C.M., Ph.D., FACS

Dr. Peter Black was born and raised in Canada attended Harvard College and McGill University. He did surgical and then neurosurgical residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Georgetown University.  In 1987 he moved to Brigham and Women’s and Children’s Hospitals as Neurosurgeon-in-Chief and Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. He is presently Founding Chair of the Departments of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Chair Emeritus of the Department of Neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital Boston and Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Black has devoted most of his professional life to treating patients of all ages with brain tumors. He is a committed clinical neurosurgeon with a busy neurosurgical oncology practice. He is consistently listed in Best Doctors in America and Top Doctors with special interest in surgery for meningiomas, pituitary adenomas, and low-grade gliomas; image-guided minimally invasive neurosurgery; skull base surgery; and brain mapping. He helped to develop the world’s first intraoperative MRI with Ferenc Jolesz and has used this device extensively to improve brain tumor treatment.  He was instrumental in developing the first linac radiosurgery unit in North America with Jay Loeffler at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  He sits on many foundations and editorial boards and is Chair of the Editorial Board of Neurosurgery. He also directs a molecular biology laboratory that investigates growth and invasion in brain tumors, especially innovative methods of blocking these with emphasis on local delivery systems.  His bibliography includes 13 books and five hundred papers, most involving brain tumors, brain imaging and image-guided surgery, medical ethics, and molecular neurosurgery. He has lectured around the world on these topics.

Dr. Black is deeply committed to neurosurgical education and development around the world and is President-Elect of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. He has mentored over a hundred students, residents, young faculty, and graduate neurosurgeons from more than thirty countries.  He is especially proud of his former trainees, many holding prominent academic positions.