Vice President

Dr. Sonia Eden is a Michigan native and ABNS (American Board of Neurological Surgery) board-certified neurosurgeon. Dr. Eden earned her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University and went on to complete her medical degree and residency at the University of Michigan. Dr. Eden also completed a minimally invasive spine surgery fellowship in Memphis under Semmes Murphey neurosurgeon and board chairman Dr. Kevin Foley.

Along with her educational achievements, Dr. Eden has had a stellar career. Some of her career highlights include serving as Chief of Neurosurgery at Harper University Hospital, being elected as Interim Chair of Neurosurgery at Wayne State University School of Medicine, and authoring a textbook on the surgical treatment of the sacroiliac joint.

Dr. Eden is very passionate about the topic of health equity. Health equity is defined by the IOM (Institute of Medicine) as “providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status.” She is a proud founding member of the American Society of Black Neurosurgeons, where she also serves as Vice President.

She enjoys a team-based, collaborative approach to healthcare and mentoring students and residents. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi, and practices from the Semmes Murphey Clinic Oxford location. She is proud to serve as a caretaker to her mother. She satisfies her childhood desire to be a veterinarian with a pet menagerie that includes a Weimaraner, a Bengal cat, and an African grey parrot.

Secretary

Owoicho Adogwa, M.D., M.P.H is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine. Focused on the treatment of spinal diseases, with primary expertise in adult and pediatric scoliosis, degenerative spinal pathologies, and spinal oncology. After earning his medical degree at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Dr. Adogwa performed his residencies in neurological surgery at Duke University Medical Center and Rush University Medical Center. During his residency at RUSH, he completed an advanced complex spine and minimally invasive spine surgery fellowship under internationally renowned spine surgeons Vincent Traynelis, M.D., and Richard Fessler, M.D. Post-residency, he completed an adult and pediatric deformity fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis, where he trained under the direction of world-renowned surgeons Munish Gupta, M.D., Keith Bridwell, M.D., Michael Kelly, M.D., Jacob Buchowski, M.D., and others. Dr. Adogwa then pursued additional surgical training in advanced osteotomy techniques in Lyon, France, under the tutelage of Pierre Roussouly, M.D., and in Accra, Ghana, under the mentorship of Oheneba Boachie, M.D. (founder of FOCOS Hospital and past president of the Scoliosis Research Society).

Given this background, Dr. Adogwa is one of only a few surgeons in the world who is cross-trained in both orthopedic spine surgery and neurosurgery, which has provided him with unique qualifications to treat patients with complex spinal conditions, bringing to each patient the expertise necessary to evaluate and, if required, surgically treat disorders of the spine.

Dr. Adogwa is a prolific surgeon-scientist, having published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers and book chapters and presented as an invited speaker, program faculty, or guest lecturer at more than 180 scientific meetings across the world.

He has served on the editorial board of numerous scientific journals, including as Associate Editor of The Spine Journal, and is a reviewer for more than 20 neurosurgery and orthopedic journals.

He has held numerous leadership positions in neurosurgery and spine surgery organizations and is a member of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the North American Spine Society, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Lumbar Spine Research Society, AO Spine, the Scoliosis Research Society, the Texas Medical Association, the Dallas Medical Association, the American College of Surgeons, and the Council of State Neurological Societies.

Among his numerous honors and awards, Dr. Adogwa has received the prestigious Journalistic and Academic Neurosurgical Excellence (J.A.N.E) Award for research excellence from the 2017 Joint Spine Section; the Charlie Kuntz Scholar Award; best paper awards at the 2014 and 2017 North American Spine Society Meetings; the 2016 Robert Florin Resident Award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons; the 2014 Regis W. Haid Jr. Deformity Research Award from the Joint Spine Section; and the 2014 Mayfield Clinical Research Award and Outcomes Committee Award.

President

William W. Ashley, Jr., MD, PhD, MBA, is a board-certified, dual fellowship-trained cerebrovascular neurosurgeon.

A Chicago native, Dr. Ashley graduated from Stanford University with a degree in biology. He earned a medical degree and a doctoral degree in physiology and biophysics at the University of Illinois College Of Medicine and an MBA in healthcare administration from the Graduate School of Business at Loyola University of Chicago. He then completed a neurosurgical residency at Barnes Jewish Hospital/Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. After residency he completed a dual fellowship in cerebrovascular and endovascular neurosurgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center.

He is currently the Director of Cerebrovascular, Endovascular, and Skull Base Neurosurgery and Chief of the Division of Neurointerventional Radiology at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore and LifeBridge Health System.

Dr. Ashley specializes in the treatment of all aspects of cerebrovascular disease. He uses open cranial and skull base surgical approaches and minimally invasive endovascular techniques. His areas of expertise include cerebral aneurysms, stroke, brain tumors, and arteriovenous malformations.

Dr. Ashley has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and abstracts, and acts as an editor for several national and international journals. He is actively involved in research, with interests in the molecular basis for brain aneurysm rupture, cerebral vasospasm, stroke. He is also an expert in neurosurgical and neuroendovascular innovation and currently serves as a novel device reviewer for the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, United States Food and Drug Administration.

Dr Ashley is very active with the American Heart Association. He is President of the American Heart Association, Greater Maryland Board of Directors and Director-at-Large of the American Heart Association, Eastern States Regional Board of Directors. Additionally, he serves as the Chair of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems (MIEMSS) Stroke Quality Improvement Committee. He is a senior member of the Society of Neurointerventional Surgeons, an active member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the AANS/CNS joint cerebrovascular section.

Dr. Ashley is dedicated to medical education and advancing equitable care. While serving on the AANS young neurosurgeons committee, he created the medical student organized neurosurgical fellowship. He serves on the Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi) IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Empowerment and Advocacy) Task Force. He is a founding member and president of the American Society of Black Neurosurgeons.

President Elect

Member at Large

Edjah K. Nduom, MD, FAANS, is Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Nduom obtained his B.S. in Biomechanical Engineering at Stanford University in 2002 and subsequently obtained his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. He then pursued Neurosurgical training in the Department of Neurosurgery at Emory University. During residency, he was awarded an NIH R25 Research Development Grant to study the delivery of nanoparticles to the brain for the treatment of brain tumors with Costas Hadjipanayis, M.D., Ph.D. He completed an in-folded Research Fellowship in Neurosurgical Oncology with Dr. Russell Lonser in the Surgical Neurology Branch in 2012. There, he focused on convection-enhanced delivery for drug delivery to the brain and the characterization of the blood-brain barrier of malignant brain lesions. Dr. Nduom completed his neurosurgical training in 2013 and then pursued an additional Neurosurgical Oncology Fellowship at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, where he was awarded the Jesse H. Jones Fellowship in Cancer Education. While at MD Anderson, Dr. Nduom spent a year in the laboratory of Amy Heimberger, M.D., studying microRNAs with immune modulatory properties for the treatment of brain tumors. In his second year, he obtained further training in the resection of brain and spinal tumors under the tutelage of Raymond Sawaya, M.D. and Jeffrey Weinberg, M.D.

After completing his residency training, Edjah joined the faculty of the Surgical Neurology Branch of the NINDS Intramural Research Program as a Staff Clinician in August 2015, and became an Assistant Clinical investigator in 2019. He left the NIH to take a position as Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Emory in September of 2020. Dr. Nduom is a member of the Cancer Immunology Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. His research focuses on the modulation of the immune system for the treatment of malignant brain tumors. He has presented his translational and clinical work on immune therapy for brain tumors at numerous national and international meetings.

Dr. Nduom is a member of the executive committee of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) and the Joint Tumor Section of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and the CNS. He is also a member of the CNS, the AANS, the American Medical Association, the National Medical Association, the Society for Neuro-Oncology and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer. Dr Nduom is a Founding Steering Committee member of the Society for Neuro-Oncology Sub Saharan Africa. Dr. Nduom serves as a founding Director-at-Large of the American Society of Black Neurosurgeons, Inc.