Dr. Ali Baaj is a board-certified neurosurgeon who specializes in spinal surgery, with advanced training and expertise in spinal oncology and complex reconstructive surgery for spinal deformity. He is accomplished in both minimally invasive spinal surgery and open complex spine surgery, having had formal training in both orthopedic and neurosurgical spine surgery. Before joining the faculty at Weill Cornell, Dr. Baaj served as the director of the Spinal Neurosurgery Program at the University of Arizona at Tucson, where he led the clinical program and founded the multidisciplinary spine conference and spinal research fellowship program.  

Dr. Baaj earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Boston University before receiving his M.D. from the Boston University College of Medicine. He completed a general surgery internship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, followed by a neurosurgical residency at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Dr. Baaj received further training as a Research Fellow at the Spinal Biomechanics Laboratory at St. Joseph’s Hospital/Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix and as a Complex Spine Fellow at Johns Hopkins, with an emphasis on advanced techniques in spinal tumor resection and spinal reconstruction. He also completed a two-month fellowship in Paris studying advanced techniques for pediatric deformity and scoliosis, with an emphasis on neuromuscular and idiopathic scoliosis.