Dr. Ferrara received her medical degree suma cum laude from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one of the most prestigious universities in South America. During medical school, she joined a research group from the Biophysics Institute and conducted laboratory research projects on macromolecular metabolism at the Health Sciences Center. She completed a surgical internship and ophthalmology residency at the same University, followed by a Master’s Degree in Ophthalmology conducting experimental research on electrophysiology of chromatic vision. Dr. Ferrara completed her training at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, achieving a PhD degree in Visual Sciences with her research on multimodal imaging on retinal dystrophy. Dr. Ferrara moved to the United States in 2006 to complete a research fellowship in Medical Retina at the Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital affiliated to New York University, and since then she has been working on multimodal imaging analysis for clinical trials on retinal diseases. Dr. Ferrara’s training and career are shaped to bring together basic research and clinical challenges.
Dr. Ferrara’s major research interests include imaging of the posterior segment of the eye, and multimodal imaging analysis on pathological conditions of the vitreous, retina and choroid. She is focused on dystrophic and degenerative diseases of the retina, and retinal vascular diseases. As Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Tufts University School of Medicine, Dr. Ferrara is currently involved with the Optical Coherence Tomography Team at the New England Eye Center, a multidisciplinary group that promotes the scientific contribution on a clinical setting between retina specialists and the Research Laboratory of Electronics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Leng is considered to be one of the top 150 worldwide leading innovators in the field of medical and surgical retina and serves the Department of Ophthalmology as both the Director of Clinical and Translational Research and the Director of Ophthalmic Diagnostics.
As a board-certified ophthalmologist and fellowship-trained vitreoretinal surgeon, Dr. Leng uses the latest techniques and small-incisional sutureless technology to minimize patient discomfort and maximize functional outcomes. He is committed to bringing the highest level of patient-centered care for all types of retinal conditions.
Dr. Jennifer Lim is the Director of the Retina Service at UI Health. Dr. Lim is involved in both the clinical treatment and research aspects of retinal and vitreous diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment, and age-related macular degeneration, and she has been the principal investigator in dozens of clinical trials for various retinal diseases. Dr. Lim has performed more than 6,000 vitreoretinal surgeries, and she is one of the few surgeons in the United States to perform implantation surgery for the Argus II retinal prosthesis, which can restore vision in patients with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a rare eye disease that causes damage to the retina, resulting in loss of vision. She is the Marion Schenk Chair for Research of the Aging Eye at the University of Illinois College of Medicine.
Rishi Singh, MD, has been named as chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Mass General Brigham (MGB).
Dr. Singh will be leading the clinical, educational and research activities within the Department of Ophthalmology at Mass Eye and Ear, our academic medical centers and across Mass General Brigham. He will oversee the integration of the department across all domains to seamlessly serve the needs of MGB’s patients and community.
Dr. Singh was the vice president and chief medical officer for Cleveland Clinic Martin North and South Hospitals in Florida. He also serves as a professor of ophthalmology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Singh earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from Boston University and completed his residency at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary through the Harvard Combined Program in Boston before completing a medical and surgical fellowship at the Cole Eye Institute in Cleveland.
Dr. Singh specializes in the management of complex retinal diseases, including diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment and age-related macular degeneration. He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, books and book chapters, and serves as principal investigator for numerous national clinical trials advancing the treatment of retinal disease. He is the founder and past president of the Retina World Congress and serves on the board of the American Society of Retina Specialists. He has received several research honors, including the Alpha Omega Alpha Research Award and the American Society of Retina Specialists Senior Honor Award.
Dr. Campbell obtained a bachelors degree in Physics from Davidson College, in Davidson, N.C., followed by medical school and residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Wilmer Eye Institute. He also obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins. Following his vitreoretinal fellowship at the Casey Eye Institute, he returned to Wilmer to serve as the Stephen J. Ryan Assistant Chief of Service for 2014 – 2015.
Dr. Campbell’s current research interests focus on utilizing technology to improve the care of patients with retinal disease, domestically and overseas. He is involved with ongoing research projects in retinopathy of prematurity, imaging in pediatric retinal disease and diabetic retinopathy, and is participating in numerous clinical trials with the Casey Eye Institute Retina Division.
Stephanie Campbell, PhD has a wealth of experience in the field of optometry. Stephanie began their career in 2009 as a Summer Research Intern in Ophthalmology at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine. In 2010, they became a Pre-registration Optometrist at Nottingham University Hospital. From 2011 to 2012, they were an Optometrist and PhD Student, as well as a Clinical Supervisor, at Cardiff University. During this time, they were also a Faculty Member at The Vision Care Institute of Johnson & Johnson. In 2012, they became a Glaucoma Specialist Optometrist at University Hospital of Wales. From 2015 to 2018, they held various roles, including NCN Optometrist Lead at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Cornea Specialist Optometrist at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, and Member of Hearings Panel (Fitness to Practice) at the General Optical Council. In 2018, they founded and became the CEO of OKKO Health.
Stephanie Campbell, PhD attained their Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Vision Science – Keratoconus from Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd between 2012 and 2016. In 2013, they attended Zhejiang University for a course in Business Culture. Stephanie also obtained a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Optometry from Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd between 2007 and 2011. Stephanie Campbell, PhD also attended Rainey Endowed School, though no degree was earned.
R.V. Paul Chan, MD, MSc, MBA, is Professor and Head of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). He serves as Director of the Pediatric Retina and Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) Service. His clinical practice focuses on vitreoretinal surgery, with an expertise in pediatric retinal disease. Dr. Chan received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and MD from the Temple University School of Medicine. After completing Ophthalmology residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical College, he went on to a Fellowship in Vitreoretinal Surgery at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chan spent nine years on faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College, as Director of the Retina Service and Vitreoretinal Fellowship, before moving to UIC in 2015.
Dr. Chan is committed to global health initiatives with a focus on both surgical training and education for the diagnosis and management of adult and pediatric retinal disease. Dr. Chan’s primary research interests focus on utilizing new technology and imaging techniques to better evaluate and manage pediatric retinal disease. He receives grant funding from the NIH as well as a number of charitable foundations. He is a core team member of the Imaging and Informatics for ROP (i-ROP) consortium and leads the Global Education Network for ROP (GEN-ROP), which is an international collaboration of investigators with expertise in neonatology, ophthalmology, biomedical informatics, international health, and medical education. Together, they are implementing tele-education programs aimed at addressing the growing global burden of ROP and have established clinical, teaching, and research collaborations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Dr. Chan also serves as a consultant for both Orbis International and Helen Keller International (HKI), and sits on the Board of Trustees for HKI.
Dr. Chan is Executive Editor of the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s (AAO) Global Ophthalmology (GO) Guide, is an assistant editor for the journal, Retina, and is on the editorial board for the Journal of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, the Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology, the Journal of VitreoRetinal Diseases, Retina Today, New Retina MD, and Ocular Surgery News. He is an active member in a number of major ophthalmic societies, including the American Eye Study Club, the American Ophthalmological Society, the Club Jules Gonin, the Retina Society, the Macula Society, the Vit-Bukle Society, the Association of Pediatric Retina Surgeons, and the American Society of Retina Specialists. Dr. Chan is also an honorary member of the Thai Retina Society. He serves on the Global ONE Advisory Board and the Ethics Committee for the AAO. He is also on the Executive Committee for the Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology (PAAO). Dr. Chan has won numerous awards including a Heed Ophthalmic Foundation Fellowship, the Ronald G. Michels Foundation Fellowship, the Paul Kayser International Fellowship, the Excellence in Ophthalmology Vision Award (XOVA), the American Society of Retina Specialists Senior Honor Award, the Achievement Award and two Secretariat Awards by the AAO.
Dr. Domalpally is the Research Director of the Wisconsin Reading Center, one of the world’s leading diagnostic imaging centers for both patient diagnosis and clinical trials. Her work investigates clinical trial imaging endpoints for retinal diseases, with a focus on employing new imaging techniques to understand the natural history and prognostic markers of diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, and many others. In collaboration with National Eye Institute and other researchers around the nation, Dr. Domalpally led the imaging endpoints for the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2(AREDS2), an influential study investigating the role of supplements in AREDS formulation for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) treatment. She has published over 25 papers for this study alone.
Lutein + zeaxanthin and omega-3 fatty acids for age-related macular degeneration: the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2) randomized clinical trial
Dr. Domalpally has a strong focus on improving the interpretation of the abundant and complex imaging data in clinical trials. A better understanding of potential errors in imaging technologies, for instance, reduces false interpretation of data and improves patient management. Dr. Domalpally has detailed artifacts that are intrinsic to OCT angiography technology that help clinicians quickly flag unreliable images that should be discarded.
Prevalence and severity of artifacts in optical coherence tomographic angiograms
She is also involved in developing diagnostic artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for retinal diseases. In collaboration with the National Eye Institute, she has developed a deep learning algorithm that assists in detecting reticular pseudodrusen, a feature associated with AMD that is difficult to identify by a human observer.
Deep learning automated detection of reticular pseudodrusen from fundus autofluorescence images or color fundus photographs in AREDS2
Dr. Ranya Habash is CEO of LifeLong Vision Special Purpose Acquisition Company and the former Medical Director of Technology Innovation at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. She was appointed to the FDA’s Digital Health Network of Experts and listed on The Ophthalmologist Power List, first recognizing the top 50 stars in the world “who will lead ophthalmology over the next few decades and shape its future,” then as one of the “most influential” female ophthalmologists in the world, and most recently as one of the “Top 100 most influential people” in ophthalmology, worldwide.
Habash was also Chief Medical Officer of Everbridge and Co-Founder of HipaaChat. She was listed by Becker’s Hospital Review as a Top Healthcare Entrepreneur to Know. As a publicly-traded company, Everbridge integrated HipaaChat’s secure messaging and telemedicine platform within its software suite, serving over 1500 hospitals and health systems. As Chief Medical Officer, she provided strategic clinical insight for Everbridge’s business development, sales, and product teams, while collaborating with companies like Apple, Amazon, and Verizon to modernize communication for health systems. This included HIPAA-compliance, automated code alerts, IoT monitoring of medical devices, mobile SOS safety software, and care coordination between hospitals, ambulances, and emergency services on a city-wide and state-wide scale. Her training sessions and materials have been internationally embraced, and her work was cited in U.S. Senate Committee hearings for telehealth expansion in all medical specialties.
Combining her unique clinical, tech, and product backgrounds, Habash joined Microsoft’s healthcare team to lead a global machine learning project between Microsoft and Bascom Palmer, delivering a multi-disease retinal algorithm to automate diagnosis and treatment of eye conditions. As program manager for Microsoft, she worked to build a global collaborative network for data sharing and digital health collaboration. Her latest research focuses on brain-computer interface technology for the diagnosis and treatment of multiple ophthalmic and neurologic conditions. These extraordinary experiences fuel her strategy for LifeLong Vision SPAC and the impact she hopes to make on healthcare.
Majda Hadzihametovic, M.D., received her M.D. from University of Belgrade School of Medicine in 2006, followed by Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, Scheie Eye Institute, from 2007 to 2012. After completing a year of General Surgery training at Drexel University College of Medicine in 2012, she completed Ophthalmology Residency at the same institution from 2013 to 2016, where she served as a chief resident during her final year. After finishing Medical Retina training at Duke, in 2017 she joined the faculty.
Dr. Hadziahmetovic’s is a clinician scientist with present research agenda focused on teleophthalmology. She is particularly interested in employing remote diagnosis in early diagnosis, suitable referral and timely treatment of diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration using cutting-edge noninvasive optic coherence tomography (OCT) imaging and fundus photography.
Dr. Hadziahmetovic also has a great interest in basic science, especially investigating new mouse models of retinal diseases. Her long term goal is better understanding of disease processes in Age related macular degeneration using different animal models and potential reversal of morphological changes.
Dr. McConnell is a native of Brooklyn, NY and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtaining his BS and MS in Electrical/Biomedical Engineering, followed by his MD at Stanford University. He returned to Boston and specialized in Cardiovascular Medicine and Cardiovascular Imaging at Brigham and Women’s and Beth Israel Hospitals and then joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School, where he also obtained an MS in Clinical Investigation. His early research discovery in echocardiography has become known as “McConnell’s sign.”
He joined the faculty at Stanford in 1998 and went on to become Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and (by courtesy) Electrical Engineering and Molecular & Cellular Physiology. He was Director of Cardiovascular MRI, Preventive Cardiology Clinic, and Cardiovascular Health Innovation at Stanford and also founded and directed the Cardiovascular Imaging at Stanford (CVIS) NIH training program. He was the Principal Investigator for multiple NIH and American Heart Association (AHA) research grants as well as the top-enrolling MyHeart Counts mobile health research study launching Apple’s ResearchKit. In 2015 he joined Google/Alphabet leading cardiovascular and digital health projects, including development, validation, and FDA clearances for mobile/wearable devices and AI software with Verily, Google Health, and Fitbit. He is now the Chief Health Officer at Toku to advance AI and retinal imaging for screening and prevention of major health conditions.
Dr. McConnell continues to see patients in the Stanford Preventive Cardiology Clinic, mentor in the Stanford Biodesign program, and advise multiple health tech startups. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles and is a Fellow of the AHA, the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, and the American Society of Echocardiography. He is a founding member of the AHA’s Health Technologies Advisory Group and co-chaired AHA’s 2030 Impact Goal task force and the ACC-Consumer Technology Association’s guidance on Cardiovascular Technology Solutions. In 2022, Dr. McConnell was appointed by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to the Board of Directors of the National Fitness Foundation. His book, Fight Heart Disease Like Cancer, was published by Hopkins Press in January 2024.
Dr. Nimesh A. Patel specializes in the medical and surgical treatment of vitreoretinal diseases. His clinical interests and expertise involve working with both adult and pediatric patients, with a goal of providing top quality, individualized care for a variety of conditions including macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment, epiretinal membrane, macular hole, ocular trauma, and retinopathy of prematurity. He is an active member of the Retina Service at Mass Eye and Ear, as well as at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he is the Director of Pediatric Retina.
During his medical training, Dr. Patel excelled academically and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society. After completing his ophthalmology residency at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, he served as Chief Resident and Director of the Trauma Service. He subsequently completed vitreoretinal fellowship training there as well.
Dr. Patel is an innovator with a passion for clinical and basic science research. He has published numerous original peer-reviewed research articles and textbook chapters spanning a range of subjects including surgical techniques, retinal vascular diseases, intraocular lenses, retinal imaging, and ocular infections. He is often invited to speak at highly regarded local, national, and international conferences.
Pearse Keane is Professor of Artificial Medical Intelligence at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He is also Director of the INSIGHT health data research hub programme based at Moorfields Eye Hospital.
Since 2020, Pearse has been funded by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) as a Future Leaders Fellow, and in 2023 he became a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Senior Investigator. He is originally from Ireland and received his medical degree from University College Dublin (UCD), graduating in 2002.
In 2016, he initiated a collaboration between Moorfields Eye Hospital and Google DeepMind, with the aim of developing artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for the earlier detection and treatment of retinal disease. In August 2018, the first results of this collaboration were published in the journal, Nature Medicine.
In May 2020, he jointly led work, again published in Nature Medicine, to develop an early warning system for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), by far the commonest cause of blindness in many countries. In 2023, he led the development of RETFound, the first foundation model in ophthalmology, published in Nature and made available open source.
Pearse leads a multi-disciplinary research group of clinician scientists at UCL and Moorfields, focused on developing and implementing AI systems in healthcare.
Homa Rashidisabet is a Research Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. She aspires to advance translational Artificial Intelligence (AI) to shift medicine from a reactive to a proactive discipline. Her research focuses on developing deep neural networks and machine learning solutions for ophthalmic imaging to enable early diagnosis, monitoring, and assessment of complex ophthalmic conditions through disease prediction and abnormality detection.
Dr. Rashidisabet is particularly interested in:
(1) Ensuring consistent AI performance across diverse clinical settings by developing generalizable models that address domain shifts in ophthalmic imaging. Domain shift —caused by variations in data collection across institutions, devices, and patient demographics— poses a critical challenge for reliable disease prediction.
(2) Enhancing low-risk, informed clinical decision-making by developing AI models that accurately quantify their uncertainty in predictions. By improving transparency, these models help clinicians determine when to trust or question AI outputs, ultimately enhancing patient safety.
Dr. Rashidisabet earned her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Illinois Chicago and holds a BSc in Applied Mathematics from the University of Tehran, Iran, where she grew up.
Steffen Schmitz-Valckenberg, MD, specializes in clinical and surgical treatment of macular and retinal diseases, including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and is an expert in high-resolution retinal imaging.
Dr. Schmitz-Valckenberg co-founded and directed the Grading of Digital Fundus Examination Reading Center at the University of Bonn, Germany, where he was the Department of Ophthalmology’s assistant medical director. As an expert in high-resolution retinal and fundus autofluorescence imaging, he has used various imaging techniques to map the stages of decline in AMD. Researchers worldwide use this mapping to measure outcomes during interventional clinical trials.
At Moran, Dr. Schmitz-Valckenberg is directing an ophthalmic image reading center that will play a key role in the Sharon Eccles Steele Center for Translational Medicine’s drive to take a new therapy for a prevalent form of AMD into clinical trials.
Dr. Lucia Sobrin is a full-time clinician scientist with Mass Eye and Ear’s Retina and Uveitis Services. She has unique expertise diagnosing and treating rare and complicated eye disorders that affect the middle (uvea) and back (retina) portions of the eye. She has a specific clinical interest in the diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune retinopathy and cancer-associated retinopathy. She also serves as Associate Director of the Retina Service and Director of the Morse Laser Center.
After obtaining her medical degree from the University Miami School of Medicine, Dr. Sobrin completed her ophthalmology residency training at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. She then completed a medical and surgical retina fellowship at Mass Eye and Ear followed by a uveitis and ocular immunology fellowship at the Massachusetts Eye Research and Surgery Institute. In 2006, she became one of the Department’s first Harvard Vision Clinical Scientist Research Program (K12) recipients and later received her Master of Public Health Degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.
In research, Dr. Sobrin is particularly interested in elucidating the genetics of diabetic retinopathy. As a Department of Ophthalmology Scholar, she led a candidate gene association study of diabetic retinopathy within the Candidate gene Association Resource (CARe), which included patients from several large population-based cohorts and an admixture genetic association study for diabetic retinopathy in African Americans. She currently leads a multi-ethnic genome-wide association study of diabetic retinopathy. In 2011, she was honored with the ARVO/Alcon Early Career Clinician Scientist Research Award. In 2015 she was honored with the Alcon Research Institute Young Investigator Award.
Dr. Sobrin shares her in-depth knowledge of rare and complex cases with uveitis and retina fellows as well as ophthalmology residents. She also co-directs Mass Eye and Ear’s Uveitis Fellowship Program.
Assoc Prof Daniel Ting is a senior consultant vitreo-retinal surgeon working in the Singapore National Eye Center (SNEC), an Associate Professor with Duke-NUS Medical School and an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor and an Innovation Mentor at Stanford University. He is also the Director of Singapore Health Service (SingHealth) AI Office, SNEC Chief Data and Digital Officer, and the Head of AI and Digital Innovation in Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI). In 2017, Dr Ting was US-ASEAN Fulbright Scholar visiting the Johns Hopkins University Fulbright Scholar to share his expertise in AI and big data in medicine. In addition to that, his research focus span across not only on the technical aspect on machine learning, deep learning, large language models, explainable AI, privacy preserving technologies, but also safe, responsible and ethical clinical AI applications. He is also involved in several international consensus reporting guidelines such as STARD-AI, QUADAS-AI and DECIDE-AI.
To date, Daniel has published >250 publications on peer reviewed, book chapters, educational articles and conference abstracts. Of those, 45 were published in high impact journals (IF >10) such as JAMA, NEJM, Lancet, Nature Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Lancet Digital Health, Progress in Retinal and Eye Research, Diabetes Care, Nature Digital Medicine, Ophthalmology and etc. As of Aug 2024 (Google Scholar), his current H index: 61, i-10 index: 172 with total citations of >20,000. Dr Ting has received a total of 100M research grants, in which 20 M as a principal investigator, and 80M as co-investigators on AI and digital innovation related projects in health.
Dr Ting serves in several leadership positions at the different AI and eye societies, including the American Academy of Ophthalmology AI and Retina Ophthalmology Technology Assessment committees, and he also chairs the AI and Digital Innovation Standing Committee for the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology and Asia-Pacific Vitreo-Retinal Society. He also serves in numerous advisory and editorial boards in the top-tiered digital and medical journals, including Lancet Digital Health, Frontiers in Medicine, Frontiers in Digital Health and Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology; Section Editor in British Journal of Ophthalmology and Editorial Board Member in Ophthalmology, Ophthalmology Retina, Ophthalmology Science, British Journal of Ophthalmology, Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology and Retina.
For the accomplishment, Dr Ting was recognized by many top-tiered international AI and ophthalmology societies in winning many prestigious scientific awards, including Tatler Asia Gen T Award (2021), Singapore National Clinician Scientist Award (2021), Asia-Pacific Academy Ophthalmology (APAO) Nakajima Award (2021), Asia-Pacific Vitreo-Retinal Society (APVRS) Ian Constable Award (2021), MICCAI OMIA Prestigious Achievement Award (2020), ARVO Bert Glaser Award for Innovative Research in Retina (2020), USA Macula Society Evangelos Gragoudas Award (2019), APAO Young Ophthalmologist’s Award (2018) and APTOS Young Innovator Award (2017).
In 2022, 2023 and 2024, he is included in the World’s Top 100 Ophthalmology Power list by the Ophthalmologists; and the World’s Top 2% Scientists by the Stanford University world ranking. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, he was consistently ranked top 3 in the deep learning domain over the past decades (2010 – 2023) by the ExpertScape. In 2024, he won the Singapore National Academy of Medicine Young Scientist Award, and also ranked the Top 100 AI Thought Leaders Worldwide with Fei Fei Li, Yan LeCun, Jensen Huang and many others by H20.ai.
Dr. Waheed brings almost 20 years of experience in ophthalmology and leadership to Ocular through her work as a retinal surgeon, scientist, clinical researcher and Board Member in academic and research settings. She has a proven track record in clinical development and as a CMO, with experience in all phases of development including clinical trial design and analysis and regulatory interactions.
Most recently, Dr Waheed served as Chief Medical and Development Officer at Beacon Therapeutics, focused on serious diseases of the eye that cause vision loss and blindness. Prior to her time at Beacon, Dr. Waheed served as Chief Medical Officer, Head of Clinical Development at Gyroscope Therapeutics and played an instrumental role in the company’s acquisition by Novartis AG. Previously, Dr. Waheed was Director of the Boston Image Reading Center and Consultant at the New England Eye Center, Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. Dr. Waheed is currently Professor of Ophthalmology at Tufts University Medical School and is maintaining her appointment at the New England Eye Center, one day per week.
Dr. Waheed serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Boston Image Reading Center, including work on two board committees, as well as the boards of iOlyx Pharmaceuticals and Bionic Sight LLC. Before joining industry, Dr. Waheed held academic appointments in Ophthalmology at leading institutions including the Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation; Shifa College of Medicine and Tufts University Medical School and New England Eye Center at Tufts Medical Center.
Dr. Waheed has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications, co-authored and edited three books in Ophthalmology and contributed to several more. She has participated as a principal investigator or co-investigator in many clinical trials and laboratory investigations. Her research interests include diseases of the retina, including wet AMD and diabetic retinopathy, ocular imaging, as well as clinical trial design and analysis.
Dr. Waheed received her medical degree from the Aga Khan University Medical School, Pakistan, summa cum Laude, a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and is certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology. She trained at the Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary Program in Ophthalmology and completed a fellowship in retina at the Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. Over the course of her academic career, Dr. Waheed also established the Retina Unit at the Shifa Hospital. She has received numerous awards including the Young Investigator Award from the Macula Society in 2020, the Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology in 2016, and the Teaching Fellow of the Year Award from Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in 2006.
Dr. Zebardast is a clinician scientist and full-time member of the Glaucoma Service at Mass Eye and Ear. She specializes in the treatment of adult glaucoma and combined glaucoma and cataracts, with a particular interest in minimally invasive glaucoma surgeries (MIGS).
She has received numerous awards and honors for her academic and research accomplishments and has published in top ophthalmology journals. She has made significant contributions to global epidemiologic research having established the Indian Family Angle Closure Evaluation with colleagues at Aravind Eye Institute in Southern India. Among other findings, this study determined that siblings of individuals with known angle closure have a greater than 1 in 3 risk of developing the condition. Additionally, she has worked with a many large datasets to understand the prevalence of eye disease and its impact.
Her current research focuses on machine-learning methods to characterize and define novel glaucoma endophenotypes to understand the genetic underpinning of vision loss in this blinding disease. Her goal is to develop novel imaging and genomics-based precision medicine screening and diagnostic tools to pre-symptomatically identify patients at high risk of functional vision loss and progression while avoiding unnecessary care of those unlikely to worsen.
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