Benjamin Solomon Carson Sr. (born September 18, 1951) is an American retired neurosurgeon, academic, author, and government official who served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021. A pioneer in the field of neurosurgery, he ran for president of the United States in the 2016 Republican primaries. Carson is one of the most prominent black conservatives in the United States. Carson became the youngest chief of pediatric neurosurgery in the United States in 1984, when he took the job at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center at age 33. In 1987, he gained fame for leading a team of surgeons in the first-known separation of conjoined twins joined at the back of the head. He performed the first successful neurosurgical procedure on a fetus inside the womb, developed new methods to treat brain-stem tumors, and revitalized hemispherectomy techniques for controlling seizures. He has written more than 100...