R.V. Paul Chan, MD, MSc, MBA, FACS, is the Department Head and the John H. Panton, MD Professor of Ophthalmology at the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He is the Co-Director of the Vitreoretinal Fellowship and 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, MD from the Temple University School of Medicine, MSc from Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC), and MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. After completing Ophthalmology residency at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital of WCMC, 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 WCMC, as Director of the Retina Service and Vitreoretinal Fellowship, before moving to UIC.
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Dr. Chan previously served as the Vice Chair for both Clinical Affairs and Global Ophthalmology in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UIC and is a global leader in pediatric blindness prevention and ROP. His primary research interests focus on utilizing new technology and imaging techniques to better evaluate and manage children with retinal disease. He has authored over 160 peer reviewed articles and has received grant funding by the NIH, the NSF, and 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 have developed tele-education and telemedicine programs, and have established clinical, teaching, and research collaborations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Dr. Chan also serves as a consultant for programs sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Orbis International, and Helen KellerInternational (HKI).
Dr. Chan has been actively involved in academic ophthalmology and organized medicine. He serves on the Board of Trustees for HKI, the Executive Committee for the Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology (PAAO), and the Committee of Secretaries for the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), where he is the Secretary for Global Alliances. Dr. Chan is an assistant editor for the journal, Retina, and is on the editorial board for Retina Today, Ocular Surgery News, the Journal of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, the Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology, and the Journal of VitreoRetinal Diseases. He is an active member in a number of ophthalmic societies, including the American Ophthalmological Society, the Club Jules Gonin, the Retina Society, the Macula Society, founding member of the Vit-Buckle Society, the Association of Pediatric Retina Surgeons, the American Society of Retina Specialists, and he is Past President of the Chinese American Ophthalmological Society and Past President of the American Eye Study Club. He has also served on the Global ONE Advisory Board and the Ethics Committee for the AAO.
Kathryn Colby, MD, PhD, is an internationally renowned academic corneal specialist with a longstanding interest in Fuchs dystrophy, the most common cause for corneal transplantation in the US. She is currently pioneering novel, non-transplant treatments for this condition. She has specific expertise in the management of ocular surface tumors, pediatric corneal disease, infectious keratitis, and keratoprosthesis.
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Dr. Colby received her BA from the Johns Hopkins University, her PhD in Neurobiology from Brown University, and her MD from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she graduated summa cum laude. She completed her ophthalmology residency, chief residency and cornea fellowship at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Dr. Colby was a Heed Fellow in 1997-1998. Dr. Colby is a passionate educator who trained hundreds of students, residents and fellows during the two decades she spent at Harvard Medical School prior to becoming Chairman of Ophthalmology at the University of Chicago, where she spent 5 years as the Louis Block Professor and a Master Clinician in the Bucksbaum Institute for Clinical Excellence. In September 2020, Dr. Colby moved to NYU as the Elisabeth J Cohen Professor and Department Chairman.
Dr. Colby is the president of the Cornea Society and serves on numerous Boards of Directors. She completed a term as an AAO Councilor, where she represents the state of Illinois. She is recipient of multiple awards, including the Senior Achievement award and three Secretariat awards from the AAO, mentorship awards from the AMA and Women in Ophthalmology, and the Innovation and Research Award from the Lions Eye Institute for Transplant & Research. Dr. Colby is currently the US Chair for a multi-national, multi-center study examining the role of Rho kinase inhibition in corneal endothelial rejuvenation. She is a program chair for the upcoming World Cornea Congress. Dr. Colby has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, multiple book chapters and seven books, including the only textbook on pediatric cornea. Dr. Colby lectures around the world on corneal, clinical research, and professional development topics.
Paul P. Lee, MD, JD, serves as F. Bruce Fralick Professor and Chair in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Michigan Medical School and Director of the W.K. Kellogg Eye Center.
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Dr. Lee has published over 250 papers on glaucoma and eye care delivery in general, particularly on understanding and improving eye and health care. He has been principal investigator on research projects to evaluate the appropriateness of cataract surgery, the quality of glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy care, utilization patterns of eye care, provider workforce analyses for ophthalmology and orthopedics, and analyses of failure patterns for the treatment of diabetes related eye disease and glaucoma. He has also led the ophthalmic portions of other projects investigating conformance with AHCPR guidelines for cataract, utilization and quality of eye care patterns in managed care, and a comparison of fee-for-service to managed care among Medicare patients.
Dr. Lee has served in several leadership capacities, including as the immediate past chair of the ARVO Foundation, an at-large member of the Board of Trustees of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), chair of the American Glaucoma Society’s Quality of Care Subcommittee, and original co-chair of the AMA-AAO Consortium Task Force for Eye Care Quality Indicators (PQRI). He has also been a consultant for the CDC and the WHO, as well as RAND. He currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the Hoskins Center on Patient Safety and Quality for the Foundation of the AAO and has served on the IRIS Registry Development Group, the first national outpatient care registry of any specialty being implemented in the United States. In addition, Dr. Lee serves as the vice-chair and chair-elect of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Ophthalmology, on the Board of Directors of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology and the American Glaucoma Society, and as a past board member of Prevent Blindness America, the Blind Children’s Center, and the Center for the Partially Sighted.
He has received the Lew Wasserman Merit Award from Research to Prevent Blindness, the Alcon Institute Research Award, the Senior Achievement Award from the AAO, the Gold Fellow from ARVO, and has been inducted into Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis. He has also delivered the American Glaucoma Society Lecture, the Parker-Heath Lecture of the AMA section of ophthalmology, and the Shaffer Lecture at the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Dr. Lee received his law degree from Columbia University in 1986. He received his medical degree from the University of Michigan that same year.
Stacy Pineles, MD, MS currently holds the Jerome and Joan Snyder Chair in Ophthalmology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is an internationally renowned academic pediatric and neuro-ophthalmology specialist with a longstanding interest in clinical trials of strabismus surgical techniques and outcomes, as well as pediatric neuro-ophthalmic conditions. She is currently the Chair-Elect of the Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group (PEDIG), which is a collaborative network dedicated to facilitating multicenter clinical research in strabismus, amblyopia and other eye disorders that affect children. The network, which was formed in 1997, is funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI). There are currently over 100 participating sites (offices) with over 300 pediatric ophthalmologists and pediatric optometrists in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom participating in the network.
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Dr. Pineles received her BS from the Duke University School of Engineering, and her MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She completed her ophthalmology residency and pediatric ophthalmology fellowship at the Stein Eye Institute, at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Pineles was a Society of Heed Fellow in 2008-2009. She then completed a second fellowship in neuro-ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She was awarded a Master’s Degree in Clinical Investigation from the UCLA Department of Biomathematics in 2013. Upon return to the Stein Eye Institute after her fellowship training in 2010, Dr. Pineles took on the role of Associate Residency Program Director and then assumed the role of Residency Program Director in 2017. During her tenure as a leader in the UCLA residency program, she has mentored over 100 ophthalmologists in training. She has served in numerous national leadership roles in ophthalmology education, including the AUPO Program Directors Council, the AAO’s Committee for Residency Education, the ACGME Residency Review Committee, and the AUPO Surgical Curriculum for Ophthalmology Residents program.
Dr. Pineles is currently the president-elect of the AUPO Program Directors Council and the Chair of the AAO’s Ophthalmic Technology Assessment Committee, the AAPOS Research Committee, and the NANOS Abstract Committee. She also serves on numerous other national committees related to pediatric ophthalmology and neuro-ophthalmology. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the AAPOS Young Investigator Award, AAO Secretariat Award and the AAPOS Honor Award. Dr. Pineles has published over 140 peer-reviewed articles, 12 book chapters, and has delivered numerous international lectures.
Marco A. Zarbin, MD, PhD, graduated from Dartmouth College and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He completed resident and fellowship training (vitreoretinal surgery and medical retina) at the Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute and was an Assistant Chief of Service at Wilmer. Dr. Zarbin is Chair of the Institute of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School and Chief of Ophthalmology at University Hospital in Newark, NJ. He is a Professor of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience and is the Alfonse A. Cinotti, MD/Lions Eye Research Chair. Dr. Zarbin is co-Director of the Ocular Cell Transplantation Laboratory. He has published 221 peer-reviewed papers and editorials, 100 book chapters, one book on age-related macular degeneration, one book on stem cell therapy for degenerative retinal disease, and two books on the management of diabetic retinopathy.
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Dr. Zarbin is a Vice Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, Editor-in-Chief of Translational Vision Science and Technology, is a member of the editorial board of Ophthalmology, Ophthalmology Retina, and the Journal of Vitreoretinal Diseases, and is an ex officio member of the National Advisory Eye Council. He is also a member of the American Ophthalmological Society, Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis, the Retina Society, the Macula Society, the Club Jules Gonin, and the ASRS. Dr. Zarbin is listed among the “Best Doctors” by Castle Connolly. Dr. Zarbin is an ARVO Fellow, Gold Level and is a recipient of the Heed Award.