Ralph Sacco Obituary, Death – Ralph L. Sacco, MD, MS, FAHA, FAAN, the 35th president of the AAN from 2017 to 2019, died on January 17, 2023, of a brain tumor. Sacco was the Olemberg Family Chair in Neurological Disorders, the Miller Professor of Neurology Public Health Sciences, Human Genetics, and Neurosurgery, the executive director of the Evelyn McKnight Brain Institute, the Senior Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Science, and the chief of the Jackson Memorial Hospital neurology service at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Read the obituary for Dr. Sacco.
During his time as AAN president, Sacco spearheaded an effort to make sure that everyone in academic neurology, from department chairmen to professors to students, was aware of the wealth of Academy resources available to them. He met with neurology chairs and their business managers to better understand the specific challenges and expectations they faced, as well as how the AAN could help.
He was a vocal supporter of growing the neurology workforce through the academic pipeline, and he promoted the concept of the “neurologists” to spark people’s interest in professions in neurology, which included interventions, preventative care, and the future of regenerative care. Sacco also advocated for the AAN’s Axon Registry® and stronger ties to the international neurology community.
Sacco earned a master’s degree in epidemiology from Columbia University’s School of Public Health after graduating from Cornell University and Boston University School of Medicine. The materials listed below are for people who desire to work in the field of rehabilitation. Before taking on his most recent job, he was a professor of neurology, the director of the Stroke and Critical Care Division, and an associate chairman at Columbia University.
Sacco was a world authority in stroke epidemiology and health disparities. He was the original main investigator of the Northern Manhattan Study, the Florida-Puerto Rico Stroke Disparities Collaboration, and the Miami Clinical Translational Science Institute, as well as a co-investigator on numerous other NIH grants.
Sacco has almost 1,000 peer-reviewed articles (h-index 109) in the fields of stroke prevention, therapy, epidemiology, risk factors, vascular cognitive impairment, human genetics, and outcomes, and has been recognized as a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher since 2017.
He received the AAN Wartenberg Lecture, the AHA Feinberg Award for Clinical Stroke Excellence, the World Stroke Organization Global Stroke Leadership Award, the AHA Gold Heart Award, the NINDS Javits Award in Neurology, and other honors.
Sacco served on the Stroke and Epidemiology Councils of the American Heart Association, was an ANA fellow, and was elected to the Association of American Physicians and the National Academy of Medicine. From 2010 to 2011, he was the American Heart Association’s first neurologist president.