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Neurologist Dileep Yavagal gets lifetime achievement award
The award recognizes decades of work advancing stroke treatment and expanding access to care worldwide.
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Malvika Choudhary - Sat, 02, May 2026
- 14:54 EDT
- 37
Dileep Yavagal / med.miami.edu
Indian American neurologist Dileep R. Yavagal received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting for his contributions to stroke care and global health.
The honor, presented by the Association of Indian American Neurologists in collaboration with the American Brain Foundation, recognizes his role in advancing mechanical thrombectomy as a standard treatment for acute ischemic stroke and efforts to expand access to care.
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“Receiving this Lifetime Achievement Award is deeply humbling,” Yavagal said. “It reflects the work of many collaborators, mentors and trainees who share a commitment to ensuring that where you live – or what resources you have – does not determine whether you survive a stroke with your independence intact.”
Yavagal serves as chief of Interventional Neurology and co-director of Neuroendovascular Surgery at the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Hospital. He is also director of the Neurological Stem Cell Platform at the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute.
Colleagues credited his leadership in transforming acute stroke care. “Dr. Yavagal’s leadership of the global initiative Mission Thrombectomy has made it possible for individuals in middle and lower income countries to afford themselves this powerful and effective treatment, improving outcomes and saving lives,” said Jose Romano, chair of neurology at the Miller School.
Yavagal has been a key contributor to clinical trials including SWIFT PRIME, which demonstrated the effectiveness of mechanical thrombectomy for large-vessel occlusion strokes and helped reshape global treatment guidelines.
Beyond clinical research, his work has focused on disparities in access. As founder of Mission Thrombectomy, active in more than 90 countries, he has promoted training, systems design and lower-cost technologies to expand stroke care in resource-limited settings.
A multicenter study in India, the GRASSROOT trial, showed that lower-cost devices can deliver effective outcomes when paired with optimized systems.
In the United States, his research has highlighted gaps in rural stroke care, showing that patients in rural areas are significantly less likely to receive thrombectomy compared with urban patients, underscoring systemic barriers in access to specialized treatment.
Born and trained in India, Yavagal has maintained academic and research collaborations with institutions there while mentoring physicians globally. Over his career, he has trained dozens of neurologists who now lead stroke programs worldwide.
Yavagal completed his neurology residency at Harvard Medical School, followed by fellowships in critical care neurology at Columbia University and interventional neuroradiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
He earlier trained in internal medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1997–1998) and completed his medical education at KEM Hospital and Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College in Mumbai.
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