Xiang Qian

Keynote Speaker

Xiang Qian

Stanford Medicine Endowed Director; Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine; Clinical Professor (by courtesy) of Neurosurgery; Medical Director of International Medical Services in Stanford Health Care

Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine / Stanford Health Care

Medical Director of International Medical Services in Stanford Health Care

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Biography

Xiang Qian, MD, PhD, is the inaugural Stanford Medicine Endowed Director and Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment as Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery. He received his PhD in Physiology and Biophysics from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training in neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco, supported by an HHMI postdoctoral fellowship. He completed his anesthesiology residency and pain medicine fellowship at Stanford, and is board certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology in both anesthesiology and pain medicine.

Dr. Qian is internationally recognized for developing novel therapies for chronic pain, with particular expertise in migraine and headache, trigeminal and glossopharyngeal neuralgia, hemifacial spasm, atypical facial pain, cancer pain, and neuropathic pain. He leads Stanford’s CT-guided interventional pain program and co-directs the Stanford Facial Pain Program, where he has pioneered minimally invasive, awake CT-guided procedures for facial pain and hemifacial spasm. He also serves as Co-Faculty Director of the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative (eWEAR), collaborating with engineering colleagues on wirelessly powered miniature implantable nerve stimulators. His research interests further include AI-based diagnosis and management, optogenetics, ion channel biology, and the mechanisms of neuropathic pain.

Since 2016, Dr. Qian has served as Medical Director of Stanford International Medical Services, advancing care for international patients and global academic collaboration. He is also the founder of the Chinese American Physicians’ Society, which now has more than 800 physician members across 50 states and over 40 subspecialties. His honors include the Stanford Medicine Translational and Clinical Innovation Award (2017), the Fok Ying-Tung Medal from WACD (2019), and a Stanford Faculty Teaching Award (2021). A member of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, he has published widely in journals including Nature, PNAS, Neuron, and the Journal of Neurosurgery.