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Alcon ARI

Vadim Arshavsky

Vadim Arshavsky is a Helena Rubinstein Professor of Ophthalmology and Pharmacology at Duke University. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Moscow State University and, after completing a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has kept faculty appointments at Harvard (1995-2005) and Duke (2005-now). Arshavsky’s research is devoted to understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms of vision. Most of his work is centered on the vertebrate photoreceptor, a sensory neuron responsible for the light detection in the eye. His major past contributions include the first demonstration that the lifetime of activated heterotrimeric G proteins could be regulated by their interacting partners and the discovery of an unusual mechanism of light adaptation, whereby the light-sensitivity of photoreceptor cells is adjusted through massive diurnal translocation of several signaling proteins between their individual subcellular compartments. Currently the Arshavsky laboratory pursues two major directions. The first addresses the molecular processes responsible for building the light-sensitive outer segment organelles of photoreceptor cells. Most notably, they revealed a striking mechanistic connection between the formation of photoreceptor disc membranes and the primordial ability of all primary cilia to release extracellular vesicles, called ectosomes. Their work suggests that disc membranes evolved from ectosomes that were retained and flattened at the primary cilium of photoreceptor cells. They further showed that the formation of each photoreceptor disc begins with the action of branched actin cytoskeleton in a mechanism homologous to lamellipodia outgrowth in motile cells. The second current direction of the Arshavsky laboratory addresses pathophysiological mechanisms leading to the loss of photoreceptor cells in inherited blinding diseases. They currently explore a concept that photoreceptor loss could be prevented by activating the protein degradation machinery in affected cells.

Melanie Bahlo, PhD

Is Theme Leader for “Healthy Development and Ageing” at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia, overseeing the scientific strategy for three divisions, including the Population Health and Immunity division which she co-established in 2015.
A bioinformatician/statistical geneticist with over 20 years’ experience, Professor Bahlo’s research aims to understand the genetic basis of human diseases, with a focus on neurological and retinal disorders including epilepsy, ataxia, macular telangiectasia type 2 (mactel) and age-related macular degeneration.
Leading a statistical genetics laboratory since 2007, Professor Bahlo’s research lab has developed novel analysis methods and software. She leads analysis teams that have discovered new genes and genetic pathways, advancing understanding of disease as well as providing genetic diagnoses of many patients.

Stephen Burns, PhD

Stephen Burns received a B.S. in Engineering from Lehigh University and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Ohio State University. He is currently a Professor of Optometry at Indiana University and the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs in the School of Optometry. Steve is a gold fellow in ARVO, as well as a fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the American Academy of Optometry. He is the 2010 awardee of OSA’s Tillyer Award for contributions to vision science. He was the Chairman of OSA’s Medical Optics Division in 1991, is the past Editor in Chief of the Journal of the Optical Society of America A. and is currently an Associate Editor for Vision Research and Chairman of the Editorial Ethics Subcommittee for OSA. Dr. Burns has served on numerous panels including the NIH BDPE Study Section and the FDA's Panel on Ophthalmic Devices as well as on the Board of Directors of both OSA and ARVO, as well as Chair of the American Academy of Optometry’s Visual Science membership committee.
Steve’s research interests are varied. While in graduate school at the Ohio State University he worked with Dr. Carl Ingling on opponent color theory and that interest in color and early visual processing has been a major interest for his entire career. His interest in fundamental visual processes was extended to the impact of disease on vision during his postdoctoral studies with Drs. Joel Pokorny and Vivianne Smith in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Chicago. He has continued to pursue research that involved both clinical and basic aspects of eye research in his subsequent positions at the University of Pittsburgh (1979-1987), the Schepens Eye Research Institute and Harvard Medical School (1987-2005) and now at Indiana University where he is a Professor of Optometry.
Steve’s research has typically included both the development of new technologies for studying the eye and the application of these technologies to focused investigations of the eye’s structure and function. Thus he developed and applied psychophysical techniques for measuring cone photopigment kinetics, used nonlinear analysis of electrophysiological (ERG) and psychophysical responses, as well as developing and applying optical techniques for measuring the optical aberrations of the eye and measuring the Stile-Crawford effect. Currently his lab is a major contributor to advances in using adaptive optics to better understand the impact of diabetes and glaucoma on the eye. Steve’s research has been funded continuously by NIH since 1982.

Michelle ("Mimi") Cabrera, MD

Dr. Michelle Cabrera is an Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Washington and Chief of Ophthalmology at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She serves as principal investigator for handheld OCT imaging research in premature and full-term infants with a focus on identifying biomarkers for retinopathy of prematurity. Dr. Cabrera serves as Chair for the University of Washington School of Medicine Dean’s Standing Committee on Women in Medicine and Science and has been a national and international invited speaker on the issue of sexual harassment in medicine and ophthalmology.

Jennifer Chao, MD, PhD

Dr. Chao received a B.S. from Stanford University, an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Yale University, and completed a residency in ophthalmology and a fellowship in vitreoretinal medicine and surgery at the USC/Doheny Eye Institute in Los Angeles, CA. She also completed a research fellowship at Caltech in developmental and stem cell biology. Since joining the faculty at the University of Washington University Department of Ophthalmology in 2009, Dr. Chao’s research has focused on the mechanisms of disease in human RPE cell culture models generated from patients with inherited retinal degenerative diseases. In collaboration with her colleagues, Dr. Chao’s laboratory has determined unique metabolic pathways in the RPE that may contribute to RPE-related disease pathology, and this work has resulted in a number of publications in leading journals. Dr. Chao’s research focus is in line with her clinical practice of treating patients with a variety of surgical and medical retinal diseases, including age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and inherited macular degenerations.

Franck Leveiller, PhD

Franck Leveiller is Senior Vice President, Head, Global R&D for Alcon, with responsibility for driving all facets of Surgical and Vision Care R&D.
Franck joined Alcon in June 2011 as VP and Head of R&D Vision Care, and in June 2015 assumed the role of Head, R&D Surgical Franchise at Alcon. Before joining Alcon, Franck was the Global Head of R&D at CIBA VISION, after two years with Novartis Pharmaceuticals as Global Head Technical R&D, Project Management.
With more than 17 years of R&D experience in the pharmaceutical industry, working across different geographies and cultures, Franck has a strong track record in applying strategic thinking to complex projects and leading large teams of scientists and engineers. Prior to Alcon, he held R&D positions with pharmaceutical companies, such as AstraZeneca, Aventis and Rhône-Poulenc Rorer.
Franck has a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, where he was awarded the John F. Kennedy Memorial prize for outstanding PhD research work.

Martin Friedlander, MD, PhD

Dr. Friedlander received his undergraduate education at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in the Committee on Developmental Biology and his M.D. at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center. After spending time as a faculty member in the Laboratory of Gunter Blobel at the Rockefeller University, he journeyed to the west coast for his clinical training in ophthalmology, completing a residency and retina fellowship at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. He joined the faculty of the Scripps Research Institute and Scripps Memorial Hospital in 1993. He is presently a Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Graduate Program in Macromolecular and Cellular Structure and Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute. He is a Staff Ophthalmologist and Chief of the Retina Service at Scripps Clinic and Green Hospital. He has served as the Director of Laboratory Research for the LMRI/MacTel Project and became the President of the Lowy Medical Research Institute in 2012.
Dr. Friedlander has been a scholar of the Sinsheimer and Heed Ophthalmic Foundations and the recipient of the Alcon Research Award and Bressler Prize in Vision Research. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (National Eye Institute), The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Lowy Medical Research Institute (LMRI, the MacTel project). He has served on a number of national service panels for the National Institutes of Health including study section BDPE, the Trans-Institute Program in Therapeutic Modulation of Angiogenesis, the Neuroscience Blueprint, the National Eye Institute Strategic Planning Advisory Panels, the advisory panel for the NIH Roadmaps Nanomedicine Initiative and the NIH Council of Councils Common Fund Evaluation Working Group. He has lectured widely and published over a hundred peer-reviewed publications. His research interests focus on: (1) using iPSC derived retinal cells for treating retinal degenerative diseases; (2) understanding the role of adult, bone marrow and cord blood derived hematopoietic stem cells, integrins, matrix metalloproteinases and other extracellular matrix and cellular receptors during angiogenesis; and (3) exploiting targeted, inducible deletion mice to understand the role of oxygen sensing molecules (e.g., VEGF, HIFs, VHL) in maintaining metabolic and functional homeostasis in different cells of the retina. He has also had a long-standing interest in targeting, translocation and integration of polytopic membrane proteins including rhodopsin and sodium-calcium exchangers. These research programs are integrated by their application to understanding of, and developing treatments for, neovascular eye diseases and inherited retinal degenerations.

Marin Ganter, PhD

Dr. Marin Gantner is a Staff Scientist at the Lowy Medical Research Institute (LMRI) in La Jolla California, an institute focused on studying the retinal degenerative disease, macular telangiectasia type 2 (MacTel). She received her Ph.D. from The Scripps Research Institute, working on understanding the signaling pathways and transcription responses that regulate energy metabolism. Dr. Gantner is applying her metabolic background and perspective to understanding the unique metabolic landscape of the retina.
She currently heads LMRI’s metabolism research program, with a focus on metabolism in the retina. She works with an international network of clinical sites to coordinate the collection of patient samples to help drive disease-based discovery. Her research combines the use of these clinical samples, cellular and animal models to gain insight into the normal metabolic demands of the retina and understanding how these change with disease. Her current focus is investigating serine, glycine and sphingolipid metabolism in the retina as it relates to changes observed in MacTel patients. These findings are being translated back into the clinic, guiding pilot studies to improve the treatment of MacTel.

Mark Humayun, MD, PhD

MARK S. HUMAYUN, MD, PHD, is the Cornelius J. Pings Chair in Biomedical Sciences, Professor of Ophthalmology, Biomedical Engineering, and Integrative Anatomical Sciences, Director of the USC Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics, and Co-Director of the USC Roski Eye Institute.
Dr. Humayun is an internationally recognized pioneer in vision restoration. He assembled a team of multidisciplinary experts to develop the first FDA approved artificial retina, Argus II, for sight restoration. He has more than 125 issued patents and over 250 peer reviewed publications. He has a google scholar H index of 90.
Dr. Humayun is a member of the U.S. National Academies of Medicine, Engineering, and Inventors. He was named top 1% of ophthalmologists by the U.S. News & World Report. For his extraordinary contributions he was awarded the United States’ highest technological achievement, the 2015 National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Obama. He is an IEEE Fellow and the recipient of the 2018 IEEE Biomedical Engineering Award and the 2020 IEEE Medal for Innovations in Healthcare Technology.

Tengku Ain Kamalden, MBBS, Dphil

Tengku Ain Kamalden, MBBS DPhil, is a clinician-scientist and associate professor at the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She was awarded Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) for her work on retinal neuroprotection from Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. She completed a vitreoretinal fellowship at the National University Hospital, Singapore (NUHS). In 2013, she was among 20 young clinicians worldwide for the Inter-Academy Medical Panel (IAMP) Young Physician Leader program in Berlin. She undertook post-doctoral research at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar. She received a Research Award from the Global Ophthalmology Award Program in 2018 and a Young Investigator Grant from Alcon Research Institute in 2019. She is currently a mentee in the Vision Academy Mentorship Program and the Asia Pacific Vitreoretinal Society (APVRS) Leadership Development Program. She is an active member of the Asia Pacific Ophthalmic Trauma Society, the Asia Pacific Vitreoretinal Society, and the Malaysian Society of Ophthalmology. Dr. Kamalden was the head of the University of Malaya Eye Research Centre (2015-2019) and formerly an honorary senior lecturer position at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom. She is currently pursuing an MSc in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to compliment her laboratory-based clinical research work.
Her main research focus is the microRNA signaling mechanism in diabetic retinopathy, intending to explore targeted therapies to prevent blindness from diabetes mellitus. She is also an active investigator of the International Globe and Adnexal Trauma Epidemiology Study Group, which focuses on ocular trauma prevention.

Cecilia Lee, MD

Is an active clinician-scientist with expertise in Big Data analyses and clinical epidemiology. She is a medical retina and uveitis specialist trained at Emory University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Moorfields Eye Hospital. She obtained a Master's of Science in Epidemiology at the University of Washington School of Public Health. Dr. Lee's research interests focus on finding the connections between the eye and the brain using non-invasive imaging, Big Data and advanced computational approaches. Dr. Lee aspires to take advantage of increasingly complex and massive amounts of ophthalmic clinical data to better understand blinding eye diseases, discover new ophthalmic biomarkers of brain disease, and translate the research findings into providing better care for the patients.

Aaron Lee, MD, MSCI

Aaron Y. Lee MD MSCI is an assistant professor and vitreoretinal surgeon at University of Washington, Department of Ophthalmology. He completed his undergraduate at Harvard University and his medical training at Washington University in St Louis. He co-chairs the American Academy of Ophthalmology Medical Information Technology Committee. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for Translational Vision Science and Technology and on the Editorial Board for the American Journal of Ophthalmology and Nature Scientific Reports. He has published 78 peer reviewed manuscripts and is known as a leader in the field of artificial intelligence and ophthalmology. Aaron Lee's research is focused on the translation of novel computation techniques in machine learning to uncover new disease associations and mechanisms from routine clinical data including electronic health records and imaging.

Kouros Nouri-Mahdavi, MD, MS

Dr. Nouri-Mahdavi’s research focuses on functional and structural measurements for optimizing diagnosis of glaucoma or its progression with an emphasis on OCT imaging, use of artificial intelligence in glaucoma diagnostics, and study of surgical outcomes in glaucoma. He has ongoing collaborations with a wide range of collaborators from different fields for translational research towards better assessment and understanding of the structural and functional impact of glaucoma and addressing them by implementing innovative approaches. He has been the recipient of many awards including the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s Achievement and Secretariat Award, the American Glaucoma Society MAPS Award and Early and Mid-Career Clinician Scientist Awards and NIH K23 and, more recently, R01 awards. In collaboration with engineering teams at UCLA, he has been the recipient of UCLA MedTech Innovation Awards in 2018 and 2019. He is also the recipient of the 2019 Alcon Senior Investigator Award.
Dr. Nouri-Mahdavi is a clinician-scientist who continues to teach and publish extensively. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles in the field of glaucoma. He is currently a member of the AGS’ Annual Meeting Committee, American Academy of Ophthalmology’s (AAO) Glaucoma Registry (IRIS) Measures Working Group and serves on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Glaucoma, International Glaucoma Review, and Journal of Ophthalmic and Vision Research.

Daniel Palaez, PhD

Dr. Pelaez received his Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2005 from Tulane University where he began his research career as a research assistant in the Center for Gene Therapy. From New Orleans, he moved to Miami where, under the guidance of Dr. Herman Cheung, he received a Masters and Doctoral degrees in Biomedical Engineering in 2007 and 2011, respectively. His doctoral work focused on stem cell-based tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. His postdoctoral research was performed as a scientist for the Veterans Administration (VA) healthcare system where he focused on neurogenic differentiation gene regulatory networks, the epigenetics of neuronal differentiation, and neuronal regeneration using pluripotent stem cell sources. He was appointed to the faculty of Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and the department of ophthalmology at the University of Miami in 2014, where he serves as the Scientific Director of Dr. Nasser Al-Rashid Vision Research Center. Dr. Pelaez’ laboratory studies mechanisms of neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation in the visual system, as well as endogenous regenerative mechanisms of the mammalian retina.

Daniel Palanker, PhD

Daniel Palanker is a Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford University. He received MSc in Physics in 1984 from the State University of Armenia in Yerevan, and PhD in Applied Physics in 1994 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
Dr. Palanker studies interactions of electric field with biological cells and tissues, and develops optical and electronic technologies for diagnostic, therapeutic, surgical and prosthetic applications, primarily in ophthalmology. In the range of optical frequencies, his studies include laser-tissue interactions with applications to ocular therapy and surgery, and interferometric imaging of neural signals. In the field of electro-neural interfaces, he is developing high-resolution photovoltaic retinal prosthesis for restoration of sight and implants for electronic control of organs.
Several of his developments are in clinical practice world-wide: Pulsed Electron Avalanche Knife (PEAK PlasmaBlade, Medtronic), Patterned Scanning Laser Photocoagulator (PASCAL, Topcon), Femtosecond Laser-assisted Cataract Surgery (Catalys, J&J), and Neural Stimulator for enhancement of tear secretion (TrueTear, Allergan). Photovoltaic retinal prosthesis for restoration of sight (PRIMA, Pixium Vision) is in clinical trials.

Eric Pierce, MD, PhD

Eric Pierce is the Chatlos Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of the Ocular Genomics Institute in the Department of Ophthalmology, Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pierce received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He did his residency in Ophthalmology at Harvard and fellowship in Pediatric Ophthalmology at Children’s Hospital, Boston where he also took his first faculty position. He was then recruited to the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He returned to Harvard in 2011 to establish the Ocular Genomics Institute (OGI). The mission of the OGI is to translate the promise of precision medicine into clinical care for patients with inherited eye disorders such as inherited retinal degenerations.

Sinha Raunak, PhD

Raunak Sinha is an assistant professor of neuroscience in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Raunak conducted his doctoral research with Jurgen Klingauf, PhD (Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Goettingen, Germany) on understanding properties of synaptic transmission in hippocampal neurons. Raunak started investigating the visual system and circuit function in the retina as a postdoctoral fellow with Fred Rieke, PhD (University of Washington, Seattle).

Lee L. Rubin, PhD

Dr. Rubin has a broad experience in translational neuroscience research in both academia and industry. His group discovered the first small molecule agonists and antagonists of the hedgehog-signaling pathway. One of the antagonists (Erivedge) was partnered with Genentech and is now approved as a treatment for metastatic basal cell carcinoma. One of the agonists is now widely used by stem cell investigators to produce motor neurons and other types of neurons from stem cells. Since coming to Harvard, Dr. Rubin has focused on producing differentiated patient-specific neurons from induced pluripotent stem cells to model disease and discover therapeutics for disorders including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). His group’s work in SMA led to the observation that there is a cell-autonomous defect in muscle development and regeneration and stimulated us to work on muscle-directed therapeutics. Finally, his lab has initiated a series of experiments focused on identifying aging related factors, such as GDF11, that may stimulate functional improvement in patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Rubin received his PhD in Neuroscience from the Rockefeller University and had postdoctoral training, also in Neuroscience, at Harvard Medical School and Stanford University School of Medicine.

Ramkumar Sabesan, PhD

Dr. Sabesan earned his Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and his Ph.D. in Optics at the Institute of Optics and Center for Visual Science at the University of Rochester. Following his doctorate, he did a postdoctoral fellowship at the School of Optometry at University of California, Berkeley studying the retinal basis of color perception using advanced high-resolution imaging, before joining the faculty at University of Washington Department of Ophthalmology. At UW, Dr.Sabesan holds adjunct appointments in the departments of Bioengineering and of Biological Structure, and is a member of the Graduate program in Neuroscience and University of Washington Institute for Neuroengineering. His lab’s basic science and translational research questions span the interface between optical imaging, neuroscience and ophthalmology and uses a combination of adaptive optics based technologies, quantitative phase imaging, visual psychophysics and computational approaches to pursue them. In addition to extramural funding from the National Eye Institute, Dr.Sabesan’s research has been supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interfaces, the Research to Prevent Blindness Career Development Award, the Alcon Research Institute Young Investigator Award and an Individual Investigator Grant from the Foundation for Fighting Blindness.

Mike Sapieha Przemyslaw, PhD

Mike (Przemyslaw) Sapieha is the director of fundamental vision research at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre and head of the Neurovascular Eye Disease Lab. He is the Wolfe Professor in translational vision research and holds the Canada Research Chair in retinal cell biology. His research focuses on elucidating the causes of retinal vascular diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and age related macular degeneration.

Yuzuru Sasamoto, MD, PhD

Yuzuru Sasamoto, MD, PhD, is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an Associate Geneticist in the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Genetics Division.
Dr. Sasamoto obtained his MD and PhD at Osaka University with a very strong publication record in the field of corneal regeneration. He is a fully trained board-certified ophthalmologist in Japan. He joined Dr. Frank’s research group at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to pursue his interest in studying limbal stem cells and their application to the treatment of corneal eye disease.

William Tuten, OD, PhD

William S. Tuten is an Assistant Professor of Optometry and Vision Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He received an O.D. from the Ohio State University College of Optometry and a Ph.D. in Vision Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Departments of Ophthalmology and Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include using adaptive optics ophthalmoscopy to characterize cellular-scale structure and function in inherited retinal degenerations. Previous awards include a Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23) from the National Eye Institute, a Young Investigator Award from the Optical Society of America, and a Hellman Fellowship from the University of California.

Luis Vazquez, MD, PhD

Luis E. Vazquez, MD, PhD is an assistant professor of Clinical Ophthalmology and Cell Biology at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He graduated Magna Cum Laude and received the Charles Darwin Award for academic achievement from the University of Puerto Rico and received a Doctoral degree in Molecular Neuroscience from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He received his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed Ophthalmology residency training at the Doheny Eye Institute, University of Southern California. He sub-specialized in Glaucoma at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, where he continues to serve as an active, full-time faculty member. He has an active research laboratory to study ocular perfusion and pathogenesis of glaucoma. He has published numerous research articles and textbook chapters, and his work has been presented in major research meetings at the national and international level.

David R. Williams, PhD

Williams’ research program marshals the latest optical technology to address questions about the limits of vision in the normal and diseased eye. His research team demonstrated the first adaptive optics system for the eye, showing that vision can be improved beyond that provided by conventional spectacles. This work was instrumental in the development of wavefront-guided refractive surgery used throughout the world today. His group also demonstrated the first closed-loop adaptive optics ophthalmoscope, which is now widely used in vivo to study the normal and diseased retina at a microscopic spatial scale. Williams, in collaboration with William Merigan and Juliette McGregor, have recently developed a method to optically record from retinal ganglion cells and also to optogenetically drive ganglion cell responses with light in the living primate eye. They are currently exploiting these methods to understand the retinal basis for foveal vision as well as to restore vision in blindness. Awards include the OSA Edgar G. Tillyer Award (1998), the Friedenwald Award (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, 2006), the Bressler Prize (Jewish Guild for the Blind, 2007), the Champalimaud Vision Award (2012), the RPB Stein Innovation Award (2014), the Beckman Argyros Award (Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation, 2015), and the RPB David F. Weeks Award for Outstanding Vision Research Award (2020). He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.

Jia Yin, MD, PhD, MPH

Jia Yin, MD, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, and a cornea and refractive surgery surgeon at the Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary. In addition, she is an Assistant Scientist at the Schepens Eye Research Institute.
As a clinician scientist, Dr. Yin conducts basic and clinical research in the areas of corneal angiogenesis, innervation, inflammation, wound healing, dry eye disease, ocular graft-versus-host disease, and corneal dystrophy. She is the principle investigator of several federally funded research projects to investigate treatment for chemical injury to the eye, limbal stem cell deficiency, and other ocular surface diseases.
Dr. Yin treats common and rare eye conditions including dry eye disease, corneal dystrophies, infection, immune disorders, keratoconus, and eye injury. Dr. Yin performs complex cataract surgery, corneal transplantation, refractive surgery, corneal crosslinking, pterygium surgery and ocular surface reconstruction.