Dr. Alexandra Golby is Professor of Neurosurgery and Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School. After completing neurosurgical training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Boston Children’s Hospital Neurosurgery residency program in 2002, she received the Dandy Clinical Fellowship from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons to study in France with Professor Benabid and in Switzerland with Professor Villemure. She returned to BWH in 2003 to start her faculty career.
At BWH, Dr. Golby is an attending neurosurgeon, Director of Image-guided Neurosurgery, Co-director of AMIGO (Advanced Multimodality Image Guided Operating Suite), and Co-director of Clinical fMRI. Dr. Golby also directs a Fellowship in Image Guided Neurosurgery to train the next generation of neurosurgical innovators.
Dr. Golby’s clinical practice is focused on image-guided neurosurgery with special interests in surgery for patients with brain tumors and epilepsy, particularly those whose disease is intimately involved with critical brain regions. Using advanced multi-modal imaging and intra-operative image-guidance, Dr. Golby performs precise, minimally invasive, and personalized surgery. In addition to conventional open craniotomy for brain tumors, she is also specialized in laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT), a minimally invasive technique that uses precisely guided laser heat to destroy tumors in the brain. Dr. Golby performed the first clinical use of LITT for brain tumor in New England in 2010. This technique is particularly helpful for tumors deep in the brain or those that are difficult to access using conventional approaches.
Dr. Golby’s research involves the development and application of preoperative and intraoperative imaging techniques to optimize surgical treatment of neurosurgical patients with brain tumors. Her research is highly translational and uses structural, functional and molecular imaging techniques to improve neurosurgical planning and intraoperative decision-making.