Oren Sagher was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel on October 18, 1963, the son of a mathematician and a biochemist, and the oldest of three children. He moved to Chicago at the age of six months, and spent the next six years there. After a year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he returned to Israel in 1970. In 1975, he moved to St. Louis, and finally to Chicago in 1976.

While still in high school, he attended the University of Illinois with a full scholarship from the Department of Music, and passed the Master's Examination in mathematics. He subsequently attended the Boston University Six-Year Medical Program, but completed his medical studies at the University of Chicago in 1987. Prior to entering residency, Dr. Sagher studied neurology at Queen Square in London. He completed his surgical internship at the University of Virginia in 1988, and a neurosurgery residency at UVa under John Jane in 1993. During his residency, Dr. Sagher spent one year as a senior registrar at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, England. He was then recruited to the faculty at the University of Michigan at the age of 29 by Dr. Julian Buz Hoff. It was through Dr. Hoff that he eventually met Kim Burchiel, and in 1997, he went to the Oregon Health Sciences University to pursue fellowship training with Kim in functional neurosurgery. His clinical practice focuses on the treatment of pain, movement disorders and epilepsy.

His basic research interests center on cerebrovascular regulation, with an emphasis on neuromodulation of cerebral blood flow in cerebral ischemia. He has also formed a collaborative research effort with the Department of Chemistry and the School of Public Health to develop a nanoparticle platform for intraoperative visualization of brain tumors.

He currently serves as the Neurosurgery Residency Program Director, and as Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appointments and Promotions for the Medical School. Dr. Sagher has served in a number of capacities on the executive committee of the AANS/CNS Joint Section on Pain, including serving as its Chair in 2004. He is also a member of the Society of University Neurosurgeons. He is on the editorial boards of Neurosurgery, the Journal of Neuro-ophthalmology and Neurosurgical Focus, and serves as a section editor for SANS-Wired. Oren and his wife Susan were married in 1989 in Charlottesville, Virginia, and have three children, Ethan (19), Abigail (16) and Daniel (14). His principal non-neurosurgical interest is his family. He is also profoundly interested in music, marathon running, and coffee.