Carl B. Heilman was born outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on December 29, 1959. He graduated magna cum laude from Allegheny College with a B.S. in Chemistry in 1982. While at Allegheny College, he was the Vice President of Student Government. He earned his MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1986. He was Co-President of his medical school class. He then performed a neurosurgery residency at Tufts Medical Center under Dr. William A. Shucart. Dr. Heilman completed a year as Chief Resident in Neurosurgery in 1993. He then performed a skull base surgery fellowship under Dr. Jon Robertson at the University of Tennessee and the Semmes Murphy Clinic.

In 1994 Dr. Heilman joined the faculty of the Department of Neurosurgery at Tufts Medical Center. His interests include skull base and pituitary surgery. He helped develop endoscopic pituitary surgery techniques and wrote one of the first papers on the endoscopic approach to the sella. In 2005, he became the Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Tufts Medical Center.

Dr. Heilman’s bibliography includes 100 journal and book chapter publications. He has served as the President of the Society of University Neurosurgeons, the President of the Boston Society of Neurology and Psychiatry, the President of the New England Neurosurgical Society, and the president of the North American Skull Base Society. He is currently a director and the secretary of the American Board of Neurological Surgeons.