Howard Hurtig, MD - Matthew Stern, MD Professorship in Neurology

The Howard Hurtig, MD - Matthew Stern, MD Professorship in Neurology honors the legacies for two world-renowned neurologists who paved the way for advances in Parkinson's disease and movement disorders.

Matthew B. Stern, MD, is the Emeritus Parker Family Professor of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Director Emeritus of the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center. Dr. Stern received his BA from Harvard University and MD from Duke University. He completed his training in neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. Along with Dr. Howard Hurtig and Gwyn Vernon, he co-founded Penn’s Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center, which he helped build into one of the premier centers of its kind in the world. Dr. Stern has authored and/or co-authored numerous papers on Parkinson’s disease (PD) and related disorders, and edited and/or co-edited eight books. Dr. Stern has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator of many studies related to PD and movement disorders. He was also co-chair of VA Cooperative Study 468 investigating Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson’s disease, and founding director of the Philadelphia VA Parkinson’s Disease Research, Education, and Clinical Center. He serves on numerous consulting boards and has lectured throughout the world. He is an inaugural member of Penn’s Academy of Master Clinicians, and Past President of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society, which has awarded him its President’s Distinguished Service Award and Honorary membership.

Howard Hurtig, MD was born and raised in Leland, Mississippi, and received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Tulane University. He trained in internal medicine at Cornell-New York Hospital and came to Penn in 1970 for a neurology residency. He joined the Penn Neurology faculty in 1973 as assistant professor, based at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1981, Dr. Hurtig became Chief of Neurology at Graduate Hospital, where he, Dr. Matthew Stern, and nurse Gwyn Vernon created the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center. In 1997, Dr. Hurtig and colleagues moved to Pennsylvania Hospital shortly after its merger with the University of Pennsylvania Health System. In 2006, he was named the Frank and Gwladys Elliott Professor of Neurology. He continued as Chief of Neurology at Pennsylvania Hospital until retirement in 2014. He is still active in the affairs of the Department of Neurology as an emeritus faculty.

Current Chairholder

Andrew Siderowf, MD, MS

Andrew Siderowf, MD, MS, is the Hurtig-Stern Professor of Neurology and the Chief of the Movement Disorders Division in the Perelman School of Medicine Department of Neurology.

Dr. Siderowf’s clinical practice focuses on the diagnosis and management of patients with Parkinson’s disease and related disorders. His research encompasses the organization and conduct of clinical trials, particularly the use of biomarkers as outcome measures.  He worked for 5 years at Avid Radiopharmaceuticals developing PET tracers for neurodegenerative disorders.  Currently, he has leadership roles in multi-center clinical studies related to Parkinson’s disease.  He is the Co-PI of the Parkinson Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI) and lead investigator for the Parkinson Study Group (PSG) in the SPARK study of passive anti-alpha synuclein immunotherapy for Parkinson’s disease (sponsored by Biogen).  He also serves on the safety monitoring boards of several ongoing multi-center clinical trials. 

Dr. Siderowf received his MD at Duke University, residency training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and fellowship training in Movement Disorders and Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Rochester (under Ira Shoulson, MD).