Benjamin L. Judson, MD, MBA

Dr. Judson is a head and neck surgeon, investigator, educator, and healthcare leader. His previous positions include serving as Program Director of the Yale Otolaryngology Residency and Chief Ambulatory Officer of Smilow Cancer Hospital.

His surgical practice focuses on the treatment of benign and malignant tumors and other surgical disorders of the head and neck. He was the first in New England to perform trans oral robotic surgery and specializes in minimally invasive surgical approaches including endoscopic laser and tailored open surgeries. He routinely operates on complex and difficult cases and works with a multidisciplinary team of other surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation doctors, and other specialist providers.

As an investigator, Dr. Judson started a tumor biorepository that supports multiple laboratory investigations of head and neck cancer at Yale and other institutions. He is the principal investigator of the Yale Larynx laboratory, which has functioned since 1972, and currently focuses on the role of bile acid reflux in hypopharyngeal carcinogenesis and identifying saliva biomarkers of head and neck cancer. He was an early investigator using large national databases to study uncommon head and neck tumors and address questions about treatment and outcomes of head and neck cancers that have not been assessed through randomized clinical trials. He is Associate Editor of the journal Head & Neck.

Dr. Judson attended Middlebury College, obtained a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated from Jefferson Medical College. He completed a residency at Georgetown University Hospital in Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, and a fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Head and Neck Surgical Oncology. Before working in medicine, he was a Peace Corp Volunteer in Sri Lanka and worked as Assistant Deputy Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. He completed a Master of Business Administration degree at the Yale School of Management in 2022.