Pittsburgh, May 22, 2026 — Incoming PGY-1 resident Regan Shanahan, MD, received the Theodore Kurze Senior Prize for Excellence in Neurological Surgery and Clinical Neurosciences. The award is given to a senior University of Pittsburgh medical student going intoneurosurgical residency training. Shanahan will join the Pitt Neurosurgery residency program as a PGY-1 resident this July.
Theodore Kurze, MD, former chair of neurosurgery at the University of Southern California (USC) and a mentor and colleague of former Pitt neurosurgery chair Peter Jannetta, MD, was a pioneering neurosurgeon who radically altered the practice of neurosurgery with his introduction of the microscope to brain surgery in the 1950s.
Shanahan joins a recent line of Kurze Prize recipients who have continued their training at Pitt, including Stephanie Casillo, MD (2023), and Anthony Schulien, MD (2021).