Please join us in congratulating our colleagues on these many wonderful achievements!

 

Preston Blomquist, MD, The Dr. W. Maxwell Thomas Chair in Ophthalmology, Professor and Vice Chair for Education, Residency Program Director at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, received the 2018 Straatsma Award for Excellence in Resident Education, given by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology. Prof. Blomquist gave the Straatsma Lecture at the 2019 AUPO Annual Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The talk was titled, "Active Teaching." (https://www.aao.org/about/awards/straatsma/preston-blomquist).

James Chodosh, MD, MPH, the David Glendenning Cogan Professor of Ophthalmology in the field of Cornea and External Disease at Harvard Medical School, presented the Jones/Smolin Lecture on October 29, 2018, at the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s annual meeting. His talk - The Persistent Enigma of Adenovirus Keratitis: Viral Pathogenesis in the Cornea - highlighted clinical signs that differentiate viral keratitis from other etiologies.

Reza Dana, MD, MSc, MPH, the Claes H. Dohlman Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, Vice Chair for Academic Programs, Harvard Department of Ophthalmology, and Associate Chief of Ophthalmology for Academic Programs, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, received the Stein Innovation Award from Research to Prevent Blindness and delivered the Champalimaud Oration at the Champalimaud Symposium held at the LV Prasad Eye Institute in India. Professor Dana also serves as the Director of the Cornea and Refractive Surgery, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, the Director of the Harvard-Vision Clinical Scientist Development Program and as Senior Scientist on the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Committee on Immunology at Harvard Medical School.

Judy Kim, MD, who is Professor of Ophthalmology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, was elected by the members of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) to serve as an at-large member of the AAO Board of Trustees and began her term of service in January 2019. Professor Kim was also the recipient of the Inaugural International Kwak Award at the Asia Pacific Vitreoretinal Society meeting held in Seoul, S. Korea in December 2018 for her contribution to research and Asia-Pacific and US ophthalmic relations.

Jennifer Lim, MD, the Marion H. Schenk Chair and Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of the Retina Service at the University of Illinois at Chicago, received the American Academy of Ophthalmology Lifetime Achievement Award 2018, the UIC Dept. of Ophthalmology Faculty of the Year 2018 Award, and was inducted into the Mother McAuley High School Hall of Honor in 2019. Professor Lim also was named an ARVO Gold Fellow in 2019.

Joan W. Miller, MD, the David Glendenning Cogan Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, was named the 2018 recipient of AOS’s celebrated Lucien Howe Medal for her distinguished service to the fields of retina and ophthalmology. She is only the fifth woman to receive the Howe Medal in the award’s nearly 100-year-year-old history. Dr. Miller is also the first woman to receive the distinguished Charles L. Schepens, MD/American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Award recognizing her contributions to the field of retinal disorders. As part of this honor, Dr. Miller presented the Schepens Award Lecture on October 26, 2018, during AAO’s retinal subspecialty day. Her talk—Developing Therapies for AMD: The Art and Science of Problem-solving—revisited the pathway to successful treatment of neovascular AMD and explored the hurdles and potential strategies to develop a new generation of therapies for AMD. Dr. Miller was also selected by the American Society of Retina Specialists as the recipient of the 2018 Gertrude D. Pyron Award of the Retina Research Foundation. Each year, the award is given to an outstanding vision scientist whose work contributes significantly to knowledge of the retina. The award is named in honor of Gertrude D. Pyron – an eminent geologist who admired the leadership in vision science of RRF President and Scientific Director, Dr. Alice McPherson.

Alan Robin, MD, who serves as Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Michigan and as Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and International Health at the Johns Hopkins University, will serve as the first Executive Vice President of the American Glaucoma Society, effective January 2019. Professor Robin also was elected to the New Trier High School’s Hall of Honor (Winnetka, Illinois). Included among the more than 1,000 members since the 1940s are Geoff Tabin in ophthalmology, Scott Turrow (Presumed Innocence), Ann Margaret, Rahm Emanuel, Charlton Heston, Sarah Ruhl, Mary-Claire King (discoverer of BRCA1), Susan Grant (executive VP CNN), Bruce Alberts (Editor-in-Chief of Science), Donald Rumsfeld, Arthur C. Nielson Jr, Ann Compton, and Mike Pyle (Chicago Bears).

Donald Puro, MD, PhD, Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan, was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Jerry Sebag, MD, FACS, FRCOphth, FARVO received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Academy of Ophthalmology in 2018. He was appointed as Senior Research Scientist at the Doheny Eye Institute/UCLA in January 2019 and will give the inaugural Robert Machemer Lecture, which is the Retina Keynote Lecture at the European Society of Ophthalmology meeting in June 2019.

John Simon, MD retired as Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Albany Medical College after 27 years, the longest tenure of any academic chair at the College. He continues to practice pediatric ophthalmology and strabismus and was named Eye Care Professional of the Year by the Northeastern Association of the Blind at Albany. Professor Simon also continues to teach and to write and is currently working on an update of his AOS thesis, Surgical Confusions in Ophthalmology.

Jayne Weiss, MD, who serves as Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and holds the Herbert E. Kaufman, MD Endowed Chair as Professor of Ophthalmology, Pathology, and Pharmacology at Louisiana State University School of Medicine and who also serves as Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs, was named the Chief Medical Officer of the Louisiana State University New Orleans Health Care Network.

Janey Wiggs, MD, PhD, FARVO, the Paul Austin Chandler Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Membership in this organization is one of the highest honors in medicine. The NAM is a national resource for independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on health issues. NAM serves alongside the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering to “address critical issues in health, medicine, and related policy and to inspire positive action across sectors."

Steven Wilson, MD, Professor of Ophthalmology at the Cleveland Clinic, published The Making, Breaking, and Renewal of a Surgeon-Scientist: A Personal Perspective of the Physician Crisis in America. The book is available exclusively on Amazon in print or for Kindle and soon will be available on audible.com as an audiobook narrated by Jeff Steitzer.