Dimitri Azar, MD, MBA serves as the Senior Director of Ophthalmic Innovations at Alphabet Verily Life Sciences.  He is Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology at The University of Illinois College of Medicine where he served as Dean from 2011 to 2018.  Previously, Dr. Azar was the Director of Cornea and Refractive Surgery Services at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.  Also, he was Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Azar has held multiple committee positions with the American Academy of Ophthalmology and serves on the Chicago Ophthalmological Society and Chicago Medical Society Board of Trustees. 

Roger Beuerman, PhD is Professor and Director of Translational Research at the Hamilton Eye Institute of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.  Dr. Beuerman along with his colleagues coined the term “functional unit” to explain how the tear layer of the eye functions. His contributions on dry eye disease and biomarkers has been a focus of development for personalized medicine.  Dr. Beuerman was an early developer of the clinical confocal microscope and was the first to show that diagnosis of fungal infections in the living human cornea was possible.  His work on myopia has led to a number of patents and to the development of new methods for pharmacological control of myopia in children.  

Wiley Chambers, MD is a Supervisory Medical Officer in the Office of New Drugs, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  Dr. Chambers is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Computer Medicine at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences.  Dr. Chambers joined the FDA in 1987 as a primary reviewer for ophthalmic drug products. His role at the FDA continues to expand; he now supervises the clinical review of ophthalmic drug and therapeutic biologic products.  Dr. Chambers has received numerous awards for his work with the FDA in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Malvina Eydelman, MD, PhD is the Director of the Office of Ophthalmic Anesthesia, Respiratory, ENT and Dental Devices at the Food and Drug Administration.  As Expert Medical Officer, Senior Medical Advisor, Director of the Division of Ophthalmic, Neurological and Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Devices, and Director of the Division of Ophthalmic and ENT Devices, Dr. Eydelman has played a key role in assuring the safety and effectiveness of medical devices for over 24 years.  Dr. Eydelman has spearheaded many clinical and laboratory studies designed to improve the safety and effectiveness of ophthalmic devices.  She is a co-chair of the Translational Vision Summit Steering Committee and serves on a plethora of editorial and advisory committees.

Steve Fliesler, PhD, FARVO is a State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Professor, University of Buffalo (UB) Distinguished Professor, the Meyer H. Riwchun Endowed Chair Professor of Ophthalmology and Vice-Chair and Director of Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at SUNY- Buffalo.  He is a Department of Veterans Affairs Research Center Scientist at the Buffalo VA Medical Center and holds concurrent appointments as a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and in the Neuroscience Graduate program at UB.  Currently, Dr. Fliesler serves on the Board of Trustees of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), representing the Retinal Cell Biology section.  He is the immediate past president of ARVO.

Monica Jablonski, PhD, FARVO is Professor of Ophthalmology, Anatomy & Neurobiology, and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.  Dr. Jablonski received her PhD from the Medical College of Wisconsin and completed her postdoctoral training at the Cullen Eye Institute at Baylor College of Medicine.  She is an internationally recognized expert and accomplished vision scientist with over 25 years’ experience in ocular physiology, cell biology, phenotyping, genomics/systems biology and formulation engineering.  Dr. Jablonski is the founder and Chief Scientific Officer of OculoTherapy, LLC.  She has been a lifelong member of the Association of Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO).  Dr. Jablonski holds two US patents on novel drugs and formulation to treat glaucoma and has received numerous grants and awards from federal agencies including the National Eye Institute. 

Herbert Kaufman, MD, MBA is Professor Emeritus at Louisiana State University College of Medicine where he was Professor of Ophthalmology, Microbiology, and Pharmacology.  Dr. Kaufman was also dean and professor of ophthalmology, microbiology, and pharmacology at the University of Florida College of Medicine.  He was instrumental in the development of The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) where he served as president and editor in chief of Investigative Ophthalmology.  Dr. Kaufman was also influential in the development of the National Eye Institute (NEI) where he served two terms on its Advisory Council.  Dr. Kaufman developed IDU, the first drug to treat herpes keratitis; he created the first ocular antifungal, Natamycin. 

Linda A. Lam, MD, MBA is the Vice Chair, Satellite Clinical Affairs and Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at USC Keck School of Medicine.  She received her medical degree with honors from Cornell University Medical College where she completed a research fellowship on retinal cell physiology.  Dr. Lam is Medical Director of USC Roski Eye Institute Arcadia.  She is actively involved in business development, strategy and operations in both the academic and private business marketplace.  Dr. Lam serves on the Vision Rehabilitation Board for the American Academy of Ophthalmology; she also serves on the Board of Directors at the Braille Institute of America and Envision Inc.  Dr. Lam is actively involved in research on macular degeneration therapies, innovations in vitreoretinal surgery, and creating novel technology to aid individuals with low vision.

Maureen G. Maguire, PhD is Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania with a secondary appointment in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics.  She is an internationally known expert in the design and conduct of multicenter clinical research in ophthalmology and has directed coordinating centers for several national trials.  Dr. Maguire focuses her research on the prevention and treatment of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the United States.  She initiated and directed the Penn Vision Clinician Scientist Program (K12) for fifteen years.  Dr. Maguire has served on the editorial boards of five journals including Cornea and Ophthalmology.  Dr. Maguire is a Gold Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and has received the Senior Achievement Award for distinguished service from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Gerrit R.J. Melles, MD, PhD is a cornea specialist and founder of the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery (NIIOS), the Melles Cornea Clinic Rotterdam, and Amnitrans EyeBank Rotterdam.  Dr. Melles is actively involved in research and development of ophthalmic surgical techniques; his clinical work focuses on managing corneal disorders.  He has invented several advanced lamellar keratoplasty techniques including Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK) and Bowman layer transplantation.  Dr. Melles has developed both instruments and medical devices and has created staining solutions for ophthalmic surgeries.  In addition to his many contributions to medicine, Dr. Melles founded the Melles Classical Music Foundation (MCMF).  In 2017 Dr. Melles was the Helen Keller Award Laureate.  He also received the 2015 Dastgheib Pioneer Award in Ocular Innovation at the Duke University Eye Center.

Steve Thomas, CRA Steve Thomas joined Heidelberg Engineering in 1995 and has held positions in sales and clinical applications. In his current role as Clinical Marketing Development Manager, Steve has had the honor to work with NASA since 2012 to send the company’s flagship product, SPECTRALIS®, to the International Space Station to study the effects of micro-gravity on vision. His involvement has given him the ability to collaborate with and train NASA engineers, astronauts, crew members, physicians and data analysis teams.  Prior to Heidelberg Engineering, Steve was Vice President of Florida Ophthalmic Consultants, an Ophthalmic Sales and Practice Management Company. His career in eye care started in 1975 as an Ophthalmic Imager and Technical Administrator for large eye care and surgical centers in South Florida. He also has served as a consultant for the Health Care Venture Capital Industry.

Robert Williams, PhD received a BA in neuroscience from UC Santa Cruz (1975) and a Ph.D. in visual system physiology at UC Davis with Leo M. Chalupa (1983). He did postdoctoral work in developmental neurobiology at Yale School of Medicine with Pasko Rakic where he developed novel stereological methods to estimate cell populations in the primary visual system. In 1989 Williams moved to the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology. In 2013 he established the Department of Genetics, Genomics and Informatics at UTHSC. He holds UT Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair in Computational Genomics since 2009. Williams is director of the Complex Trait Community (www.complextrait.org) and editor-in-chief of Frontiers in Neurogenomics. One of Williams’ more notable contributions is in the field of systems genetics and experimental precision medicine. He and his research collaborators have built GeneNetwork (gn2.genenetwork.org), an online resource and suite of phenotype and genotype data with analysis code that is used as a platform for experimental precision medicine.