Zoltan Mari MD, FAAN

Dr. Zoltan Mari is a native of Hungary, where he graduated from the University of Szeged as doctor of medicine, summa cum laude in 1993 and immediately began his PhD studies at the same school in neuroscience. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral (research) fellow at State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, from 1995 to 1997. His PhD and postdoctoral work focused on experimental work on neurodegenerative disorders, applying animal and human electrophysiology and modeling. Between 1997 and 1998 he completed a preliminary internal medicine internship program at Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, where he was elected as "Intern of the Year", after which he completed residency in neurology at Downstate (1998-2001), serving as Chief Resident during his last year of training. He was elected as a "house staff" member of the ETA New York Chapter of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society in 2001. That year he began his movement disorder clinical and research fellowship training program, mentored by Dr. Mark Hallett, at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, MD. In the last 2 years of his 4-year program, he also served as the Director of the Botulinum Toxin Injection Clinic at NINDS. Following his graduation from the movement disorder fellowship in 2005, he then completed an ACGME-accredited clinical neurophysiology fellowship with EMG emphasis, also at the NIH (2005-2006). In 2006, Dr. Mari was hired by Johns Hopkins University as Assistant Professor of Neurology, a tenure-track full-time faculty position at the School of Medicine, where he worked until 2017. Starting that same year, Dr. Mari became the first/founding Director of the Johns Hopkins DBS Center. In 2007 he became Director of the National Parkinson Foundation (now Parkinson's Foundation) Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins and founding co-director then director of the movement disorder clinical fellowship program. In 2012 he was promoted to be Associate Professor and appointed "interim" director of the Parkinson's and Movement Disorder Center (and Division), which he became permanent director of in 2014. He remained director of the Center, the clinical fellowship program, the DBS Center, and the NPF COE until his departure from Hopkins in 2017. In 2017 Dr. Mari was recruited by Cleveland Clinic to become the (endowed) Ruvo Family Chair and Director of the Parkinson's & Movement Disorder Program (and section) at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, in Las Vegas, NV, a position which he currently (2022) still holds. At the Ruvo Center, Dr. Mari has established a clinical movement disorder fellowship program and helped establish a Parkinson's Foundation Center of Excellence (both are first in the state). He is also director of the CurePSP Center of Care and Lewy Body Dementia Association's Research Center of Excellence.

Dr. Mari has authored over 115 peer-reviewed articles, numerous book chapters, over 100 meeting abstracts/conference proceedings, with a combined number of citations over 5000. He has served as principal investigator, associate investigator, or co-investigator on dozens of clinical trials, investigator initiated studies, and grants from the NIH, Parkinson's Foundation, Michael J Fox Foundation, and other independent funding agencies. He has helped train hundreds of residents in neurology and other specialties, medical and undergraduate students. He has received numerous awards and distinctions as an educator and top doctor. He also has personally oversaw the clinical fellowship training of over a dozen clinical fellows. Dr. Mari served as a PhD consultant and mentor, K award mentor, and in other similar mentoring capacity to dozens of junior faculty and staff. He is currently associate editor for Parkinsonism and Related Disorder journal, Chair of the Telemedicine Study Group for the Movement Disorder Society, Co-Chair of the Motor Features Working Group for the Parkinson Study Group, and serves on a number of Boards, Committees, Task Forces, and working groups related to his profession. He is a member of a half a dozen professional organizations.

Dr. Mari is married with two young children and has two older children from a previously resolved marriage.