David Liebeskind, MD

David S. Liebeskind, MD, FAHA, FAAN is Professor of Neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he serves as the Associate Neurology Director of the UCLA Stroke Center and the Neurology Director of the Stroke Imaging Program. He is Co-Director of the UCLA Cerebral Blood Flow Laboratory and Director of the UCLA Vascular Neurology Residency Program.

He trained in chemical engineering at Columbia University and completed his MD at New York University School of Medicine. Postgraduate medical training included internship at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston and neurology residency at UCLA. After his residency, he completed a fellowship in stroke and cerebrovascular disease at UCLA and subsequently joined the faculty in the Departments of Neurology and Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania.

He has maintained extensive clinical activity across a broad range of cerebrovascular disorders ranging from carotid disease to unusual causes of stroke. Clinical expertise includes cerebral venous thrombosis, arterial dissection, moyamoya syndrome and other causes of stroke in the young. His principal research interests include novel neuroimaging approaches to elucidate fundamental pathophysiologic correlates of cerebrovascular disease in humans with a particular focus on the collateral circulation. His work on collateral perfusion in acute ischemic stroke draws on advances in noninvasive, multimodal CT and MRI and detailed analyses of digital subtraction angiography. He directs an angiography and imaging core laboratory that has participated in central readings of MERCI, Multi MERCI, IMS-III, TREVO EU and TREVO 2. His research on collaterals in intracranial atherosclerosis complements his work on acute stroke, utilizing computational fluid dynamic modeling and estimates of fractional flow to predict risk of ischemia and reperfusion hemorrhage.