He finds that improving the quality of patient lives to be the most rewarding about his specialty. Starr earned a medical degree at the Harvard School of Medicine in 1989 and completed a residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in neurosurgery in 1995. He completed a fellowship at Emory University Hospital in surgery for movement disorders in 1998. He is a member of the American Society of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery.