Dr. Kuo immigrated to New York City from Taiwan, and attended Hunter H.S. and The Bronx H.S. of Science. While in high school, he pursued research on microbial genetic recombination at the City College of New York, and placed Fifth in the National Westinghouse Science Talent Search. He matriculated at Harvard University with National Merit and Harvard National scholarships, and graduated with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. As an undergraduate in Prof. Kleckner's lab at Harvard's Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, he was awarded a Ford Foundation grant for a senior honors thesis on transposable genetic elements that earned highest honors and was published. Supported by a Medical Scientist Training Program Fellowship award from the National Institutes of Health, he completed both an MD degree from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) at Harvard Medical School, and a PhD degree from MIT's Dept. of Biology. At MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, he received funding for graduate research with Prof. Sive to clone and identify many novel genes involved in early development of the nervous system. These studies contributed to the study of embryonic brain development, stem cell biology, neurogenesis and tumorigenesis. Dr. Kuo was inducted into Sigma Xi - Research Society of North America, and gave numerous invited national and international presentations.

The seed for Dr. Kuo's neurosurgery career was planted by Profs. Jenkins and Gehrke in introductory HST neuroanatomy, then nurtured by mentors at the Brigham & Women's and Massachusetts General Hospitals (Profs. Black, Scott, Stieg, Ogilvy and Cosgrove). Subsequently, he trained in clinical neurosurgery at the University of Southern California with Profs. Weiss, Apuzzo, McComb and Giannotta. Awarded an American Brain Tumor Association - NREF fellowship in 2003, Dr. Kuo was mentored by Prof. Rutka at the University of Toronto's Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre for translational research in medulloblastoma diagnosis and treatment. In 2005, he was recruited by Prof. Dempsey to the University of Wisconsin to direct the Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program and the Brain Tumor Research Laboratory.  He currently chairs the CNS Tumor group at the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center, co-directs both the multidisciplinary brain tumor clinic and pituitary tumor clinics, and is a member of the UW Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center. Dr. Kuo is clinically focused on taking care of patients with benign and malignant brain tumors. His research group is working to advance the understanding of brain cancer molecular biology in order to develop more effective, novel therapies.

Dr. Kuo is married to the love of his life, Linda, an immunologist, who makes him whole with a wonderful sense of humor, patience and support. After moving to Madison, their family doubled with the births of two wonderful children, James and Angelina. The entire Kuo family looks forward to further adventures together.