Merit Cudkowicz MD, MSc

Dr. Merit Cudkowicz is the Chief of the Massachusetts General Hospital Neurology Service and the Julieanne Dorn Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Dr. Cudkowicz’s research and clinical activities are dedicated to the study and treatment of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). She serves as director of the Massachusetts General Hospital ALS Clinic and the Massachusetts General Hospital Neurological Clinical Research Institute. She is one of the founders and co-directors of the Northeast ALS Consortium, a group of more than 100 clinical sites in the United States and Canada dedicated to performing collaborative, academic-led clinical ALS trials.

She is Principal Investigator of the Clinical Coordination Center for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Neurology Network of Excellence in Clinical Trials (NeuroNEXT). She is currently leading efforts at 25 different centers that conduct high-impact Phase 2 trials in neurology, hoping to speed trials by seven months to a year. The NeuroNEXT network established an academic central internal review board led by Massachusetts General and serves as a system for efficient study start-ups.

A dedicated educator, Dr. Cudkowicz mentors many young neurologists in clinical investigation of ALS and related neurodegenerative disorders. She also serves on the medical advisory board for the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the Massachusetts Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association.

Dr. Cudkowicz completed her medical degree in the Health Science and Technology program of Harvard Medical School. She served her internship at Beth Israel Hospital in New York and her neurology residency and fellowship at Massachusetts General. She also obtained a master’s degree in Clinical Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is fluent in Italian.