Awards and Honors

Tawna Roberts, OD, PhD, was selected as a co-vice chair for the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group, the longest running national collaborative research on eye disease in children. Roberts is also the recipient of the American Academy of Optometry’s 2021 Irvin M. and Beatrice Borish Award, which recognizes an outstanding clinical scientist whose career exhibits promising research for ocular disorders, and the Research to Prevent Blindness Walt and Lilly Disney Award for Amblyopia Research in collaboration with Justin Gardner, PhD, which funds an interdisciplinary research effort looking at visual function in children with amblyopia.  

Sophia Wang, MD, received the K23 Mentored Career Development Award from the National Eye Institute (NEI) for funding her research on “Personalized Predictions for Glaucoma Progression using Artificial Intelligence for Electronic Health Records” (see “Big data to transform patient care”, page 32). Wang also received the Stanford McCormick and Gabilan Faculty Award, which provides research funding for women in medicine and specifically funds her cataract surgery research.

Kuldev Singh, MD, MPH, was the honored keynote speaker at two named lectures this year, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia’s 43rd Annual Edmund B. Spaeth Oration, where he presented on personalized care, and the John R. Lynn Lectureship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he presented on glaucoma care.

Quan Dong Nguyen, MD, MSc, was selected for the San Francisco Magazine: Top Doctors in the United States; inducted into the Fellows of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and the Fellows of the American Society of Retina Specialists.

Shannon Beres, MD; Joyce Liao, MD, PhD; and Heather Moss, MD, PhD, were honored with hosting the Walsh Society 53rd Annual Meeting held in conjunction with the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society Annual Meeting.

Prithvi Mruthyunjaya, MD, MHS; Diana Do, MD; Quan Dong Nguyen, MD, MSc; and Stephen Smith, MD, hosted the second annual Stanford Retina Innovation Summit through three virtual sessions. The summit series focused exclusively on the latest game-changing innovations in medical and surgical retina, imaging, and pharmacotherapy.

Joyce Liao, MD, PhD, chaired the second annual Optic Disc Drusen Virtual Conference, attracting attendees from all over the world as they discussed laboratory and clinical advancements.

Prithvi Mruthyunjaya, MD, MHS, and Vinit Mahajan, MD, PhD, were recognized with new awards for their innovative studies on uveal melanoma biomarkers by both The Cancer League and The Macula Society Foundation. 

Andrea Kossler, MD, FACS, was selected to serve on the editorial board for the Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Journal, and on the Stanford University School of Medicine Faculty Senate in 2021.

Anthony Norcia, PhD, and Tawna Roberts, OD, PhD, are leading a multidisciplinary research effort funded by the Maternal and Child Health Research Institute at Stanford, building a novel system to measure sensory and motor systems simultaneously in infant patients. Other collaborators include Euna Koo, MD; Ann Shue, MD; and Scott Lambert, MD. 

Young Joo Sun, PhD, and Ke "Veronica" Ning, MD, were recipients of the 2021 BrightFocus Foundation Macular Degeneration Postdoctoral Fellowship Award.

Jennifer Vu received the 2021 Oral Communication Program's Award for Excellence in Honors Thesis Presentation for her thesis on “Investigating Vitreous Proteomic Biomarkers to Characterize Observed Sex Differences in the Prevalence of Macular Holes.”

Geoffrey Tabin, MD, received the 2021 Chang-Crandall Humanitarian award from the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Foundation.

Natacha Villegas, MD, received the Women in Ophthalmology Scholarship for Underrepresented Minorities.

Ahmad Al-Moujahed, MD, PhD, MPH, received several awards including the Blumenkranz-Marmor Resident Research Award, the NEI Travel Grant from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, and the VitreoRetinal Surgery Foundation Research Award, funding his research on autoimmune retinopathy proteomics.

Theodore Leng, MD, MS, hosted the virtual Ophthalmic Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit, focused on how innovative research and clinical applications in AI could impact the treatment of ophthalmology.

Kapil Mishra, MD, received the department Fellow Teaching Award of the Year for 2021.

Clara Men, MD, was the recipient of the David M. Reifler Young American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Rising Star Award 2021 for her research titled, "Transorbital Approaches to the Skull Base: An Anatomic Tool from 3D Models for Orbital Surgeons." 

Andrea Kossler, MD, FACS, and Diana Do, MD, were both recognized for their clinical leadership and excellence with the Castle Connolly Regional Top Doctor 2021 award.

Jonathan Lin, MD, PhD, received the Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Society for Investigative Pathology as well as grants from Genentech for eye pathology research and Merck for retinal pigment epithelium stem cell research.

Four Stanford fellows, Eddie Korot, MD; Charles De Boer, MD, PhD; Eliot Robert Dow, MD, PhD; and Suzanne Michalak, MD, received the 2021 Heed Foundation Fellowship Award. This supports training for bright, talented ophthalmology fellows who show great academic potential, and this year was only awarded to 22 individuals.

Scott Lambert, MD, received the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring his contributions to AAO, science, and education.

By KATHRYN SILL

Kathryn Sill is a web and communications specialist for the Byers Eye Institute in the Department of Ophthalmology, at Stanford University School of Medicine. Email her at ksill@stanford.edu.