Nirav K. Shah, M.D., F.A.C.S., was honored as one of AIR’s Champions of Hope during this year’s Taste of Hope event. He is a Board certified neurosurgeon with an emphasis on complex spinal surgery and intracranial tumor/radiosurgery. He is the medical director at Princeton Brain and Spine. Dr. Shah graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Pennsylvania State University where he completed an accelerated Bachelors-Medical Doctorate program. After graduation with Alpha Omega Alpha honors, the medical equivalent to Phi Beta Kappa, from Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, he went on to complete his internship and five-year residency at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Here, he received specialized clinical training in planning and managing gamma knife cases and an extensive six-month rotation in neurotrauma. Dr. Shah also completed a six-month apprenticeship in complex spine surgery at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and Spine Center. He has continued special education in minimal access spinal technologies, neuronavigation, and disc arthroplasty. His clinical research has been published in many peer-review journals and he has contributed chapters to textbooks and presented his research at society meetings.