Founder of IPSAC - Global

Retired Pediatric Surgeon

Professor Emerita of Surgery - University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago

Fellow of the American College of Surgeons

Dr. Ai-Xuan Holterman is the founder and president of IPSAC-Global. She was born and raised in Vietnam, but at 17, she left home amid the war to begin a new life in North America in 1975. She completed her undergraduate, medical, research, and surgical training at Texas Christian University, University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Dallas, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, and the University of Montreal. She holds board certifications in General Surgery and Pediatric Surgery from the American Board of Surgery.

Her professional vocation is to advance children’s surgical care through clinical excellence, applied research, teaching, and mentoring—especially in resource limited environments. She founded IPSAC - Global, a 501(c)(3) organization, to improve children’s health worldwide in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and help narrow gaps in surgical care, education, and innovation. IPSAC Global supports pediatric surgical capacity building; and the discovery, development, and deployment of innovative medical education, training, and research.

She was formerly a practicing pediatric surgeon and surgeon-scientist, with research interests in pediatric liver disease—supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health. She has published widely and is a member of the American Surgical Association, the American Pediatric Surgical Association, and the Society of University Surgeons. She has been invited as a guest lecturer at national and international meetings, particularly on the molecular biology of cholestatic liver disease, obesity-related liver disease, and pediatric morbid obesity.

Now retired as Professor Emerita of Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she continues her global surgical work through IPSAC-Global’s regular surgical exchange service trips. She sponsors a clinical trial for biliary atresia in Vietnam and Pakistan, and she oversees the PASS (Pediatric Acute Surgical Support) course—teaching essential emergency pediatric surgical care in Vietnam, Bahrain, Tanzania, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan and beyond.