Prof. Joseph H. Schwab is an internationally recognized orthopedic surgeon specializing in spine surgery and musculoskeletal oncology. He served as Chief of Spine Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) from November 2018 to June 2023, where he was Associated Professor of Harvard Medical Schools and directed the Spine Oncology program, co-directed the Stephan L. Harris Chordoma Center, directed the Mass General Brigham’s orthopedic registries and founded and led the Skeletal Oncology Research Group, SORG.
Dr. Schwab earned his medical degree and three master’s degrees in Pathology from the Chicago Medical School, Clinical Research from Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Data Science from University of California Berkeley. He completed his residency at the Mayo Clinic, where he received the P.J. Kelly award for outstanding basic science research. Furthering his expertise, he pursued fellowships in spine surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery and in orthopedic oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
In July 2023, Dr. Schwab joined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles as the leader of the Spine-Oncology Program and the Director of Center for Surgical Innovation and Engineering. Prof. Schwab is Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, Computational Biomedicine, and Neurosurgery at Cedars Sinai. His research focuses on integrating machine learning into clinical decision-making, and he has authored over 500 peer-reviewed publications and holds more than 10 US patents on novel orthopedic implants and biomedical devices.
