Ahmad Daher, MD, PhD, is Division Chief of Neuro-Oncology at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he also serves as Chair of the University of Illinois Cancer Center's Protocol Review Committee and as Disease-Site Lead for Neurologic Tumors, coordinating strategy across medical, surgical, and radiation oncology. He chairs the Neuro-Oncology Working Group of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium, leading multi-institutional clinical research planning for primary brain tumors across the network. He is site Principal Investigator on four active glioblastoma clinical trials spanning industry, investigator-initiated, and NCI National Clinical Trials Network studies, and lead PI of The Wise Man Trial, an investigator-initiated study of Boswellia for prevention of symptomatic radiation necrosis in CNS metastases. He is also a member of the RANO Brain Liquid Biopsy Consortium, contributing to consensus standards for plasma-based brain tumor diagnostics.

Dr. Daher's current scientific focus is ancestry-informed molecular characterization of primary CNS tumors in populations underrepresented in brain tumor genomics, anchored by an in-preparation study of next-generation sequencing profiles in a diverse UIC glioblastoma cohort with TCGA benchmarking, and parallel work in meningioma. He is co-investigator on an NIH UG3/UH3-funded CNS tumor tissue and outcomes repository at UIC, drawing on the institution's predominantly minority-serving catchment to generate primary data on racial and ancestry differences in CNS tumor biology and outcomes. In parallel, he has developed a methodology for structured, AI-augmented cognitive instruments to support high-stakes analytical work in cancer research, with applications spanning cancer center grant development, literature surveillance, manuscript development, and precision neuro-oncology program planning. He remains actively engaged in education and mentorship of neurology residents, graduate students, and medical students.