Silvia Vaca, MD
Silvia was born in Bogota, Colombia and moved to Atlanta, Georgia when she was 6 years old. She completed her undergraduate studies in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Mandarin Chinese at Georgia Tech. Silvia then attended Stanford University School of Medicine, where she completed a scholarly concentration in Bioengineering and Global Health and was awarded funding for an additional year dedicated to global neurosurgery research in Uganda under the mentorship of Dr. Gerald Grant. Throughout her residency, she has further explored her interests in cerebrovascular care and global neurosurgery with multiple international partnerships aimed at expanding neurosurgical capacity in this field. After residency, she will complete an endovascular fellowship at Stanford.
Education:
2019 – Present
Stanford University – Palo Alto, CA
Department of Neurosurgery
Resident Physician
2014 – 2019
Stanford University School of Medicine – Palo Alto, CA
M.D., Scholarly concentration in Bioengineering & Global Health
2011-2014
Georgia Institute of Technology – Atlanta, GA
B.S. Biomedical Engineering
Program Completion:
2026
Research Interests:
Global neurosurgery, expanding neurosurgical capacity in low-resource settings particularly in cerebrovascular care
Awards and Honors:
- Western Neurosurgical Society Clinical Research Award (2024)
- San Francisco Neurological Society President’s Award (2024)
- Mary Duke Biddle Global Health Scholar (2019)
- Stanford Traveling Medical Scholar (2015 – 2016)
- Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford Social Entrepreneurship Lab Fellow (2015)
- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Outstanding Senior Award (2013)