Cloward Award Recipient
2024: Linda M. Liau, MD
W. Eugene Stern Professor & Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Lecture: A Lifelong odyssey to understand and treat cerebrovascular disease, with a few detours
Dr. Linda M. Liau is the W. Eugene Stern Professor & Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She is the Co-Director of the UCLA Brain TumorCenter, and Principal Investigator and Director of the NCI-designated UCLA Brain Tumor SPORE (Specialized Program of Research Excellence).
Dr. Liau is one of the most accomplished neurosurgeons in the United States. In her leadership position as Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery at UCLA, she is among very few female neurosurgeons in such a position. In addition to her leadership of a large neurosurgical department, she is a scientist, researcher, teacher, and a role model. Her innovative research in brain tumors is well-known. Dr. Liau has several multi-million-dollar research grants and has been continuously funded by the NIH for the past 25 years.
As her CV demonstrates, she has served neurosurgery and neurosciences in both clinical and research capacity at every level nationally and internationally. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Neurological Surgery (2013), the National Academy of Medicine (2018), and the Academia Sinica (2024). She also served on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Neurological Surgery (2014 – 2020) and as ABNS Chair from 2019 to 2020, the first female to hold such a position.
She continues to serve on many editorial boards both nationally and internationally; she is in high demand and is well respected as a scientist and as a neurosurgical leader. She has been awarded the Guha Award by the Society for Neuro-Oncology, the Bittner Award by the AANS, the Charles B. Wilson Excellence Award by the AANS/CNS Section on Tumors, and the Winn Prize by the Society of Neurological Surgeons.
Dr. Liau is a dedicated mentor. She truly cares about the success of her residents, students and junior faculty. Despite all her responsibilities, Dr. Liau still finds the time to serve as a faculty mentor and advisor to the UCLA SOM Neurosurgery Interest Group, and is Co-PI of the UCLA Neuroscience Physician-Scientist Training Grant (R25/UE5).
We at the Western Neurosurgical Society have benefited firsthand from her leadership skills, wisdom, and judgement when she served as president of the WNS in 2015-2016, also the first female to hold such a position since the founding of the society in 1955.