Cloward Award Recipient
2016: Donald P. Becker, MD
Professor Emeritus, UCLA
Lecture: Lecture: Stepping-Out of the OR: A Surgeon’s Foray into Entrepreneurship
Dr. Becker was the W. Eugene Stern Professor of Neurosurgery at UCLA (1985 – 2001) and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (2001-2007). He served as UCLA Chief of Neurosurgery from 1985 until 2001. He obtained his M.D. from Case Western Reserve University and completed his neurosurgical residency at the University Hospitals of Cleveland. Prior to his position at UCLA, Dr. Becker was Professor and Chairman at the Medical College of Virginia from 1972 to 1985. At UCLA, Dr. Becker developed a multidisciplinary clinical and investigative state-of-the-art program aimed at improving cellular recovery in patients suffering from brain injury from cerebrovascular disease, trauma and brain tumors. Dr. Becker has earned many prestigious awards including the Fitts Award in 1985 from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Grass prize and medal from the Society of Neurological Surgeons in 1986, the William Caveness Award from the National Head Injury Foundation in 1988, the Distinguished Service Award from the National Neurotrauma Society in 2003, the UCLA Neurosurgery Visionary Award in 2005 and was named Legend of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in 2007. He has authored numerous articles and chapters and has written two books on neurotrauma and recovery.
He served as President of the Neurosurgical Society of America, served on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Neurological Surgery and the Journal of Neurosurgery Editorial Board. He was the former Director of the UCLA Brain Tumor Program, until he retired in 2007.
Presently, he lived in central Virginia (between Richmond and Charlottesville), but has an appointment at UCLA as an Emeritus Professor. He lives on a Horse Farm with his wife Maria. He travels to California about 4 times per year as a consultant for a private company (Samitaur Medical Technologies) in Los Alamos. In Virginia, his hobbies are horses–race horses, trail horses and hunter/jumpers. He is a member of the Deep Run Hunt Club, and still belongs to 2 Western Riding Groups (Rancheros Visitadores which meets in May in Santa Ynes Valley, and the Charlie Russell Riders which meets in September in Montana). In addition to horses, he has a passion for golf and plays as often as possible. His children are all grown, and he has 7 grandchildren.
