Praveen Mummaneni MD, MBA

Dr. Praveen Mummaneni is the Joan O'Reilly Endowed Professor in Spinal Surgery. He serves as the Director of the Cervical Spine Program, Director of the Minimally Invasive Spine Program, Director of the Minimally Invasive and Complex Spine Fellowship Program, Co-Director of the UCSF Spine Center, Vice-Chair of the UCSF Department of Neurosurgery, and Lead Surgeon for UCSF Parnassus Periop Services. Dr. Mummaneni specializes in complex cervical spine surgery for C1-2 pathologies and instability, cervicothoracic kyphosis, cervical myelopathy, and in minimally invasive spine surgery for degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis, thoracolumbar stenosis, adult spinal kyphosis and scoliosis, spinal tumors, and spinal trauma.

Dr. Mummaneni was board certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery in 2005 and currently serves as an ABNS scholar (spine-focused examiner) for the Oral Board Exam. Since 2005 he has been selected as one of the Best Doctors in America every year. He has also been named a San Francisco Super Doctor by the San Francisco Chronicle, a Top Doctor by Marin Magazine, and a Top Doctor by Castle Connolly. He is internationally recognized for his work on cervical kyphosis and minimally invasive approaches to spinal deformity surgery and spinal tumors. He has been invited as the honored guest lecturer at numerous international meetings on six continents. He was one of the first neurosurgeons elected to active membership in the Scoliosis Research Society and was also the first neurosurgeon to win the Scoliosis Research Society's Edgar Dawson Memorial Scholarship as well as the SRS Travelling Fellowship Award.

He is the editor of nine textbooks including Spinal Deformity: A Guide to Surgical Planning and Management, Handbook of Minimally Invasive and Percutaneous Spine Surgery, Handbook of Spine Surgery, Cervical Spine Surgery: Current Trends and Challenges, Minimally Invasive Spinal Deformity Surgery: An Evolution of Modern Techniques, Spinal Deformity: A Case-Based Approach to Managing and Avoiding Complications, Handbook of Neurosurgery and Neurology and Spinal Medicine for Nurses and Advanced Practice Health Professionals, Degenerative Spinal Deformity: Creating Lordosis in the Lumbar Spine, and Bridwell and DeWald’s Textbook of Spinal Surgery.

Dr. Mummaneni served as the 2013 President of the San Francisco Neurological Society. He also served as a Director at Large for the Scoliosis Research Society from 2014-2016. In 2015-2016, he served as the Chair of the AANS-CNS Joint Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves. From 2016-2017, he served as President of the California Association of Neurological Surgeons. Dr. Mummaneni completed his term as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine in 2017. In 2021 he served as the Vice President of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. He has published over 450 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals.