Ian E. McCutcheon, M.D., CM, FRCS(C), FACS, was born in Canada but came to the US at age 3, then grew up in Oregon. He entered Yale at age 16 and graduated in 1978 with a degree in chemistry, then spent two years as a research fellow in developmental physiology at the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center, where he received his first research grant and published his first papers.

He embarked on a career in clinical medicine and research after receiving his MD from McGill in 1984. After a surgical internship year at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, he returned to Montreal to do his residency in neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute under Gilles Bertrand and Andre Olivier.
Dr. McCutcheon, also worked with Jules Hardy in pituitary surgery, an experience which sparked his interest in that field and led to his taking a medical staff fellowship at the NIH under Edward Oldfield and thence to an abiding interest in neurosurgical oncology. He returned to Montreal to complete his clinical training, then in 1991 took a faculty position with Raymond Sawaya at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he remains today as professor of neurosurgery, director of the neuroendocrine program, director of the program in peripheral nerve tumors, and affiliate faculty in the program in clinical cancer genetics.

He also holds the Anne C. Brooks and Anthony D. Bullock III Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgery. His laboratory research has focused on the biology of meningiomas and malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors, and he has maintained a parallel interest in surgical strategies for treating patients with neurofibromatosis. In addition, he has built a pituitary tumor program that now includes four endocrinologists and a junior partner with expertise in endoscopic techniques; the pituitary caseload is now about 100 patients annually. He also serves as primary surgeon for the institutional program in von Hippel-Lindau disease. He has published widely in various aspects of neurosurgical oncology from a basic research as well as clinical perspective, has edited four books, and serves on several editorial boards. Dr. McCutcheon has been president of the Pituitary Network Association, the Houston Neurological Society, and the Texas Association of Neurological Surgeons, and is now President of Society of University Neurosurgeons and of the International Pituitary Pathology Club.

He is an elected member of the American Academy of Neurological Surgery. He is married to Melly and has two children.