Karin Muraszko

Karin Marie Muraszko is Julian T. Hoff Professor and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Michigan. She is the first woman to head a neurosurgery department at any medical school in the US. She specializes in brain and spinal cord abnormalities. She has a spinal cord abnormality, spina bifida.

She was born on June 19, 1957 in Jersey City, New Jersey. She graduated with a B.S. at Yale University in 1977 with a major in history and biology. Muraszko obtained her medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1981.

She was the first neurosurgery resident with a physical disability at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center where the chairman of the neurological surgery department described her as "...the most outstanding person I've met in medicine" and further "...her intelligence, tenacity and motivation have enabled her to make a remarkable contribution to the care of our patients". She completed her residency in 1988.

Muraszko is a director of the American Board of Neurological Surgery.

She is the medical director of "Project Shunt", the neurosurgery component of an annual medical mission by the Michigan, Ohio, chapter of the medical charity "Healing the Children" to Guatemala, which has one of the highest incidences of spina bifida in the world.

In 2005 the Association of Women Surgeons awarded her the Nina Starr Braunwald Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement of women in surgery".

She is married to Scott Van Sweringen; they have two children.