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

 

Richard Abbott, MD was the recipient of 2019 The International Blindness Prevention Award. This award was established in 1992 to honor an individual who has made significant contributions to reducing blindness and/or restoring sight worldwide.

Bradley Black, MD received the 2018 Outstanding Advocate Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Preston Blomquist, MD received the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The award is given to program directors who have fostered innovation and improvement in their residency/fellowship programs and served as exemplary role models for residents and fellows.

Don Budenz, MD, MPH, the Kittner Family Distinguished Professor & Chair of UNC Ophthalmology, has been elected President of the American Glaucoma Society for 2020. The Society was established in 1985 by 13 founders and has grown to include more than 1,450 members from 17 countries. The mission of the organization is to maintain and improve the quality of patient care primarily through improvement, exchange, and dissemination of information and scientific knowledge pertinent to glaucoma and related diseases. Prior to his appointment as President, Budenz served on and chaired numerous committees, received the AGS Humanitarian Award (2014), and delivered the Clinician Scientist Lecture at the annual meeting (2018). Concurrently, he will serve as President of the American Glaucoma Society Foundation, the fundraising arm of the organization.

Louis Cantor, MD, Professor Emeritus of Ophthalmology, Jay C. and Lucile L. Kahn Emeritus Chair of Glaucoma Research and Education, and Director, Glaucoma Service at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Eye Institute, Indiana University School of Medicine was recognized as one of the founding class of Fellows in Glaucoma Surgery (FGS) by the International Congress on Glaucoma Surgery.
Mark Humayun, MD, PhD received this year’s IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology for his work on the Argus II retinal prosthesis. The award, which is sponsored by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, is scheduled to be presented at the annual IEEE Honors Ceremony, during the IEEE Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit, to be held on 15 May in Vancouver. Previous winners have included Robert Langer and Lee Hood. Dr. Humayun is the only ophthalmologist ever to have been elected as a member of both the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering.
Jennifer Lim, MD received her first R01 Grant. She is CO-PI with Dr. Xincheng Yao on an OCTA project. Congratulations, Jenny!

Malcom L. Mazow, MD received the 2020 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the College of Natural Science and Mathematics of the University of Houston.

Johanna M. Seddon, MD, ScM received the 2019 Future Vision Award. The Future Vision Foundation celebrated Dr. Seddon’s contributions to vision research by producing a documentary film illustrating her journey, research discoveries, and its impact on alleviating suffering from eye disease. The film premiered at the Future Vision Award ceremony at the Cleveland Museum of Art, on November 2, 2019. Dr. Seddon’s accomplishments were also recognized by receiving the Weisenfeld Award at ARVO in 2017, and the Senior Achievement Award from AAO in 2018, among many other awards from national and international organizations. Dr. Seddon is Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), Director of Retina and Founding Director of the Macular Degeneration Center of Excellence in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UMMS.

Rona Z. Silkiss, MD received, on behalf of her research group, the Merrill Reeh Pathology Award at ASOPRS this year. This is an occasionally given award for the best research in ophthalmic pathology that year. The award was for her paper: Inflammatory Mediators in Xanthelasma Palpebrarum: Histopathologic and Immunohistochemical Study. Govorkova MS, Milman T, Ying GS, Pan W, Silkiss RZ. Ophthalmic Plast Reconstr Surg. 2018 May/Jun;34(3):225-230. In addition, the following paper was considered Editors Pick in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery: Assessing Retrobulbar Hyaluronidase as a Treatment for Filler-Induced Blindness in a Cadaver Model. Paap MK, Milman T, Ugradar S, Silkiss RZ. Plast Reconstr Surg 2019 Aug;144(2):315-320. Also, Dr. Silkiss was recognzied as a Top Doctor in San Francisco and Oakland. Tatyana Milman, a fellow AOS member, was a co-author on these studies.

M. Edward Wilson, MD, the immediate past president of AOS, served as the inaugural Carl J. Troia, MD Memorial Distinguished Lecturer in Omaha Nebraska sponsored by the Truhlson Eye Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the Omaha Ophthalmology Society in October 2019.

Ivan R. Schwab, MD, FACS, professor of ophthalmology, Department of Ophthalmology & Vision Science, Sacramento, Calif., was presented with the Claes H. Dohlman, MD, PhD, Award, which recognizes a lifetime of teaching excellence in cornea and external disease. His research interests have included comparative optics and ocular physiology, evolutionary biology, and stem cell biology for the ocular surface.