Joseph N. Contessa, MD, PhD

Joseph N. Contessa, MD, PhD, a radiation oncologist, is the director of Yale Medicine’s Central Nervous System Radiotherapy Program. He specializes in treating patients with primary tumors of the brain, head and neck, and at the base of the skull.  

“Due to Yale's large referral base, I frequently see relatively rare tumors,” he says, including low-grade and malignant gliomas, ependymomas, high-grade meningiomas, hemangiopericytomas, paragangliomas, and schwannomas. His expertise in treating uncommon cancers benefits patients diagnosed with these tumor types. “I look forward to helping patients have the best possible outcome when they are faced with a challenging diagnosis,” he says.

Dr. Contessa is also an associate professor of therapeutic radiology and of pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine where he is part of a team of physicians and scientists who are actively researching the cellular mechanisms that tumors use to evade or “outsmart” standard cancer therapies in hopes of identifying new approaches that improve treatment.

“We are all working together to increase our knowledge, improve our care and beat cancer,” Dr. Contessa says.