Dr. Dean Chou is Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Columbia University, New York. He is Chief of the Spine Division, Spine Fellowship Director, and the Co-Director of minimally invasive scoliosis surgery at Columbia University Department of Neurosurgery/New York-Presbyterian Och Spine Hospital. He previously was on faculty at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) as a Professor of Neurosurgery and Orthopedic Surgery. After medical school at UCSF, he completed his residency in neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and a spine fellowship at the Barrow Neurologic Institute.

Dr. Chou is on the editorial boards of Neurosurgery, the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, and PLOS ONE. On the advisory board of Spine, he has served as the Treasurer of the Lumbar Spine Research Society, has served as the Scientific Program Committee Chair of the Neurosurgical Society of America, and is on the CME Committee for the Scoliosis Research Society. He is the designated Scientific Program Committee Chair for Spine Summit 2025 (Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves).