Reza Yassari was born in Tehran, Iran on October 20^th, 1969. When he was 6 years old, his family relocated to Vienna, Austria where he attended the Lycée Français de Vienna. After high school, he earned his medical degree from the Medical University in Vienna in 1997 with a dissertation in Neuropathology under Prof. Herbert Budka. He moved to the United Kingdom for his basic surgical training before relocating to the U.S. where he received a M.S. in Experimental Pathology at the University of Chicago. He completed his residency in Neurosurgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center under Dr. Richard Fessler and Dr. David Frim and was a fellow at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics under Dr. Marc Siegler. Subsequently he underwent fellowship training in Spinal Oncology and Reconstructive and Complex Spine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital under Dr. Ziya Gokaslan. He was recruited in 2010 by Dr. Eugene Flamm to join the faculty at the Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine to build the spinal oncology program. He is currently Professor of Neurosurgery and Residency Program Director, serves as the Surgical Director of the Montefiore Spine Center and is a faculty member at the Albert Einstein Global Health Center.

As Program Director, Dr. Yassari’s approach to education is defined by the sum of his experiences in several different pedagogical and educational systems throughout his formation: from his school years in the French educational system, his medical education at the University of Vienna and basic surgical training in England, to his experience as a graduate student, clinician and educator in the US. He has developed an innovative tracking system for residents to oversee the progress and development of individual residents’ surgical skills in order to understand their strengths and weaknesses and to be able to refine their skill progression. He is the Neurosurgical Team Leader of the annual Mongolia Surgical Mission Program between the Albert Einstein Global Health Center and the Virtue Foundation, a NGO based in New York, that brings together several US and international Programs for joint missions to Mongolia and is the Mongolia Liaison for The Foundation for International Education in Neurological Surgery (FIENS).

Dr. Yassari’s clinical practice is focused on the surgical treatment of spinal disorders with special focus on spinal oncology. As a founding member and Surgical Director of the Montefiore Spine Center, a multidisciplinary center for the treatment of patients with spinal disease, he has helped design and implement the first program in the country to integrate the spine training of neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery residents into a comprehensive, combined residency training program within an administratively and clinically unified spine center including Orthopedics surgeons, Neurosurgeons, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Pain specialists.

Dr. Yassari’s research focuses on surgical outcome research to optimize patient care and healthcare delivery, innovation in surgical education and global health. He established the Center for Spine Care Optimization (CSCO) together with his partners at the Montefiore Spine Center with the goal to create a platform for research and development to improve the care of spine patients. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS), the AANS/CNS Joint Section on Disorders of the Spine and Peripheral Nerves, AOSpine, the American Medical Association and the New York Academy of Sciences.

He resides in Riverdale, Bronx with his family and is an avid bibliophile and map collector.