Alexa Canady

Born November 7, 1950, in Lansing, Michigan

At the age of thirty, Dr. Alexa Canady became the first black woman neurosurgeon in the United States. In 1975, she completed her medical studies at the University of Michigan with a specialty in pediatric neurosurgery. That same year, Canady also completed her surgical internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery in 1984, she has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and as clinical associate professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. Dr. Canady was chief of neurosurgery at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan from 1987 until her retirement in 2001.