Kevin J. Tracey, MD is President and CEO and the Karches Family Distinguished Chair in Medical Research at The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research; Professor of Neurosurgery and Molecular Medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra-Northwell; and Executive Vice President, Research, at Northwell Health, in New York. A pioneer in neuroimmunology, he and his colleagues discovered how the brain and vagus nerve regulate inflammation in the body. Their basic research revealed the neural mechanisms controlling immune responses and led to the first clinical trials using vagus nerve stimulation to treat rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. These findings that specific neural circuits control innate immunity helped launch the field of bioelectronic medicine.

Dr. Tracey earned his B.S. in Chemistry (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Boston College in 1979 and his M.D. from Boston University in 1983. He trained in neurosurgery at New York Hospital–Cornell University Medical Center from 1983 to 1992 and served as a guest investigator at The Rockefeller University before joining The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in 1992.
An inventor on more than 120 U.S. patents and author of over 450 scientific papers, Dr. Tracey is also author of the The Great Nerve (Avery, may, 2025), and co-founder of several biotechnology companies, including SetPoint Medical, the industry leader in bioelectronic medicine.