David S Kauvar is an academic vascular surgeon who received his undergraduate medical education during active duty in the US Army at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. He completed his residency in general surgery at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, a surgical research fellowship at the United States Army Institute for Surgical Research, and a clinical fellowship at the University of Utah. During his tenure in the military, he was a respected surgical educator and became an academic leader in the fields of military and vascular trauma. He earned a Master of Public Health degree from the University of North Texas and was inducted into the Order of Military Medical Merit for his contributions to military medicine. He has served as a general surgery residency associate program director for research and, as a residency program director, has served as chair of an institutional review board and chief of a vascular surgery service. He commanded a combat surgical unit in Afghanistan and led two multimillion-dollar Department of Defence combat casualty care research labs. He is now a Clinical Professor of Surgery in the Division of Vascular Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine, with his primary clinical responsibilities at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California.