Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Washington University, St. Louis, MO	BS	1982	Chemical Engineering
University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, Oklahoma City, OK	MD	1986	Medicine
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA		1987	General Surgery Internship
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA		1992	Orthopaedic Surgery Residency
Case Western University, Cleveland, OH		1993	Spine Surgery Fellowship
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA	Honorary MS	2017	Medicine

James D. Kang, MD is the Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and The Thornhill Family Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He assumed this role in 2015 after having spent his entire previous academic career at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and then returned to his hometown to attend The University of Oklahoma School of Medicine. He completed his surgical internship and Orthopaedic residency at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine followed by a fellowship in Spine Surgery at Case Western Reserve University. He was then recruited back to the University of Pittsburgh as an Assistant Professor in 1993 where he spent the ensuing 22 years, ultimately achieving the rank of full Professor and the UPMC Endowed Chair in Spine Surgery and the Vice Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.

Dr. Kang is a surgeon/clinician/scientist/educator. He is an internationally recognized leader in the field of intervertebral disc degeneration research. In the past 2 decades, he has done pioneering work in understanding the biology and molecular mechanisms of disc degeneration, as well as devising novel therapeutic interventions using stem cells and gene therapy.

Dr. Kang is a devoted clinician and has an active practice of spinal surgery, having performed more than 13,000 spinal operations. He has also done extensive clinical research on spinal surgeries with an emphasis on their patient reported outcomes. For all his research efforts, he has won countless national and international awards which have recognized the quality and excellence of his work.

Dr. Kang has been an outstanding educator of students, residents, fellows, and faculty. He has won multiple Golden Apple Teaching Awards for his surgical teaching prowess by residents and fellows at both University of Pittsburgh and Harvard. Many of his trainees have taken academic positions at other Universities and continue to carry on the business of training the future generation of orthopaedic surgeons.