Dr. Ben Carsons Biography

Dr. Ben Carson is the Founder and Chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute, a new think tank/do tank with a mission to promote our country’s four founding cornerstone principles: faith, liberty, community, and life, as well as to pursue common sense solutions that challenge conventional groupthink.

He most recently served as the 17th Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Secretary Carson served as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery for nearly thirty years at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, a position he assumed when he was just thirty-three years old, becoming the youngest major division director in the hospital’s history. In 1987, he successfully performed the first separation of craniopagus twins conjoined at the back of the head. He also performed the first fully successful separation of type-2 vertical craniopagus twins in 1997 in South Africa.

Dr. Carson received dozens of honors and awards for his achievements, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He is also a recipient of the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He has been awarded over seventy honorary doctorate degrees. Dr. Carson has authored several books, five of which he has co-written with his wife, Candy. The US News Media Group and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership named him among “America’s Best Leaders” in 2008.