Melodie R. Winawer, MD

Dr. Kuo is a Movement Disorders specialist caring for patients with cerebellar ataxia, including spinocerebellar ataxia and multiple system atrophy, and a variety of other movement disorders, such as essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease. As a physician-scientist, his research is funded by National Institutes of Health to study the role of the cerebellum in movement disorders, implicating in ataxia and tremor. He leads a multi-disciplinary research team to study the disease mechanism and to develop therapies for movement disorders via translational research and clinical trials. Dr. Kuo is the Director for the Initiative for Columbia Ataxia and Tremor (ICAT), an interdisciplinary research group to study how the cerebellum plays a role in neurological and neurodegenerative disorders. He also serves as one of the tri-leaders for the Clinical Research Consortium for Spinocerebellar Ataxias, constituting 15 medical centers in the U.S. to study patients living with spinocerebellar ataxias. Aiming to promote research collaboration, Dr. Kuo organizes International Tremor Congress every other year, bringing researchers together to advance therapies for tremor. He was elected in 2020 as the Vice Chair for the Movement Disorders Section at American Academy of Neurology. Dr. Kuo has received multiple scientific awards as the recognition of his contributions to neurology, including 2016 Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Scholar Merit Award, 2019 American Academy of Neurology Jon Stolk Award for Movement Disorders, and 2020 American Neurological Association Derek Denny-Brown Award.

Dr. Iwamoto is a neuro-oncologist whose previous training includes a neurology residency at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and a neuro-oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. For over three years, Dr. Iwamoto was an attending physician and an investigator at the Neuro-oncology Branch, a trans-institute branch of the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, in Bethesda, MD. At the intramural NIH, Dr. Iwamoto was a principal investigator in early phase clinical trials for brain tumors and worked with laboratory and computational scientists on several translational projects in brain tumors. Dr. Iwamoto was recruited to Columbia University as the Deputy Director of the Neuro-oncology Division and is actively developing the clinical and translational research components of this program. He is an expert in the diagnosis, management, and treatment of brain and spinal cord tumors as well as neurological complications of cancer.

Peter C. Pan, MD is a board-certified assistant professor of neurology in the Division of Neuro-Oncology. He specializes in the treatment of brain tumors. He studied molecular biology and neurobiology at the University of California Berkeley, medicine at the State University of New York Downstate, and clinical neurology residency at the University of California Davis. He completed subspecialty training in Neuro-Oncology at NewYork-Presbyterian / Columbia University Irving Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center.