Nicholas Theodore

Nicholas Theodore, MD, is the Donlin M. Long Professor and Professor of Neurosurgery, Orthopaedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Director of the Neurological Spine Program, Co-Director of the Carnegie Center for Surgical Innovation, and Director of the Complex Spine Fellowship. He graduated from Cornell University and received a Cornell Tradition Academic Fellowship. He attended medical school at Georgetown University, graduating with honors and inducted into AOA. His areas of interest include brain and spinal cord injury, minimally invasive surgery, robotics, and personalized medicine. He is the author of over 400 scientific publications and the recipient of many research awards, including the Tasker, Mayfield, and NASS Awards. In 2024, he received the Leon Wiltse Award from NASS, recognizing his excellence in clinical research in spine care.

He has received several grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and a significant award from the Department of Defense for a multi-center study examining the effects of cerebrospinal fluid drainage in acute spinal cord injury. In 2010, with Neil Crawford, PhD he founded Excelsius Surgical, a surgical robotics company that was sold to Globus Medical in 2013. The technology associated with this venture led to the first real-time image-guided surgical robot for spine surgery. It was the most successful launch of a surgical robot in medical device history. He is active in injury prevention and advocacy. He has been involved with ThinkFirst for many years, serving as the Medical Director and National President of the Board of Directors. In 2018, he was appointed Chairman of the National Football League’s Head Neck and Spine Committee, which advises the league on neuroscience, concussion, and other health and safety issues. In 2020, he received a $13.48M award from DARPA as principal investigator of a multi-center team that has developed cutting-edge implantable imaging and neuromodulation technologies for spinal cord injury, which are nearing human trials. In 2025 his lab published a paper on the first multi-analyte blood test for acute spinal cord injury.