Michael G. Kaplitt was born in Brooklyn, New York and was raised in Long Island. He completed his undergraduate education at Princeton University, where he graduated Magna Cum Lauda in Molecular Biology and also received a Certificate of Proficiency in Russian Studies. He then completed a PhD in Molecular Neurobiology at The Rockefeller University in 1993 and an MD from Cornell University Medical College in 1995. After completing a neurosurgery residency at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, he moved to Toronto to train in Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery with Andres Lozano. Dr. Kaplitt returned to Weill Cornell as a faculty member in 2001 following his fellowship to create a new clinical program in Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery. He is currently Professor of Neurological Surgery, Residency Program Director and Vice-Chairman for Research in the Department of Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College-New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is also an Adjunct Faculty at The Rockefeller University and in the Department of Biomedical Engineering of Cornell University.

He is an editor of several journals, including the Journal of Neurosurgery and Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, he has served on the executive committee of the American and World Societies for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, and has served as program chair for annual meetings of the ASSFN and the Neurosurgical Society of America. Dr. Kaplitt's research has focused upon development and application of gene therapy in the nervous system of both experimental systems and human patients. As a beginning PhD student, he was an early adopter of the idea that modified viruses could transfer genes into cells, and used herpes based systems for initial gene transfer experiments in the adult rodent brain. He then reported in 1994 for the first time that adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors could successfully transfer genes into the living mammalian brain, a technology which is now used in nearly every neuroscience laboratory in the world. During his fellowship, he began to develop concepts from stereotactic neurosurgery which could be applied to human gene therapy, and in 2003 he became the first surgeon to apply gene therapy to the adult human brain. Results of this phase I trial were reported as a cover article in the Lancet in 2007, and led to the first successful randomized, double-blind study of CNS gene therapy.

His laboratory continues to focus upon these technologies, and has made important contributions to understanding gene targets in specific brain regions which profoundly influence Parkinson's disease, major depression and drug addiction.

Michael and his wife Jessica have a son, Chase, and he also has an older son Jeremy.

Dr. Philip Stieg, Chairman and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Professor of Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine, is the founder of the Weill Cornell Medicine Brain and Spine Center in New York City. Dr. Stieg, whose clinical expertise is in cerebrovascular disorders, skull base surgery, and traumatic brain injury, is a widely published author and internationally known lecturer, and has been consistently named one of the nation's Top Doctors by Castle Connolly. He is the host of the weekly podcast This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg, and is one of the editors of the definitive textbook on AVMs, Intracranial Arteriovenous Malformations. Dr. Stieg was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1952. In November 2000, he became the first Chairman of the new Department of Neurological Surgery at Weill Medical College and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. He also holds the position of Professor of Neurological Surgery at Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

Dr. Stieg received his B.S. degree in 1974 from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, his Ph.D. in Anatomy and Neuroscience from Albany Medical College of Union University in 1980, and his M.D. from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1983. He trained at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School (Parkland Memorial Hospital) with Drs. Duke S. Samson and H. Hunt Batjer. He completed a fellowship in the laboratories of Drs. Lars Olson and Tomas Hokfeldt in cell transplantation for restorative neurological function at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Following his internship and residency at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, he moved to Boston in 1989 and was appointed Instructor in the Department of Surgery at the Harvard Medical School. He became Associate Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital, an Associate of the Department of Neurosurgery at The Children's Hospital of Boston, and Clinical Associate in Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Stieg has held numerous editorial responsibilities with a number of journals and publications, such as Neurosurgery, World Neurosurgery, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of Neurovascular Disease, Neurosurgical Focus, Stroke Council Newsletter, and Cerebrovascular Newsletter. He has served as the President of the Brain Tumor Foundation and President of the New York board of the American Heart and Stroke Association. He is also a past Chairman of the Joint Section of Cerebrovascular Surgery of AANS/CNS and past President of the Society of University Neurosurgeons. Dr. Stieg provides his expertise in head trauma as a sideline consultant for the National Football League and as a consulting neurosurgeon to the New York Giants, and he is also an advisor to the Department of Defense on traumatic brain injury in the military. Under Dr. Stieg's leadership, in 2010 the Weill Cornell Medicine Brain and Spine Center created the Surgical Innovations Lab, the first global multimedia neurosurgical teaching facility enabling real-time global teaching collaboration in multi-site medical centers, as well as New York's first multidisciplinary Concussion and Brain Injury Clinic staffed by neuro-specialists.

Most recently, Dr. Stieg spearheaded the launch of the new Weill Cornell Medicine Center for Comprehensive Spine Care, where patients receive multidisciplinary services under one roof. This new paradigm is part of Dr. Stieg's vision for reshaping the delivery of care for patients with complex conditions of the central nervous system. He has also nurtured an ambitious effort in Global Neurosurgery, with faculty members managing and participating in in-country programs in Tanzania, Senegal, Antigua, Mexico, Peru, and more. He also initiated an international conference on Global Neurosurgery that took place at Weill Cornell Medicine in 2019.