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Honors and Awards
Chantal Boisvert,
OD, MD graduated from the 2021 Duke Clinical Leadership Program. She was named among the Exceptional Women in Medicine by Castle Connolly, America’s Most Honored Doctors – Top 1% by America’s Most Honored and Regional Top Doctor by Castle Connolly.
Catherine Bowes Rickman, PhD
was awarded the George and Geneva Boguslavsky Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology.
Alan N. Carlson,
MD made the America’s Best Eye Doctors 2021 List by Newsweek.
Romain Cartoni,
PhD received The Thomas R. Lee Award for National Glaucoma Research from BrightFocus presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO).
Pratap Challa,
MD received the Duke Incubation Fund Award for a glaucoma gene therapy project. He received the American Board of Ophthalmology “Ben Goldfellar Award” for outstanding service to the ABO and was recognized as an elite doctor with the distinction of being a member of Teladoc Health Inc, Global Expert Panel.
Dilraj S. Grewal, MD speaking at 2021 AAO Retina Subspecialty Day
Laura B. Enyedi,
MD received several awards and serves in leadership roles for the American Academy of Opthalmology; 2021 Secretariat and Achievement Awards, Vice Chair of Practicing Ophthalmologists committee, Special Projects committee, Editor of AAO ONE Network, and Clinical Spokesperson.
Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS
was invited to present during the “Advancing Health & Wellness” Duke Alumni Program focusing on how technology is changing healthcare. She received the Fellow of the American Society of Retina Specialists (FASRS) designation. She was honored by the American Academy of Ophthalmology with its Secretariat Award for her service as Co-Editor of EyeNet’s Ophthalmic Pearls section for 20 years and her stewardship as EyeNet’s Retina Section Editor. The Journal of VitreoRetinal Diseases awarded her with the Distinguished Contributor Award. She was inducted into the Retina Hall of Fame. She was featured in NPR’s hour-long People’s Pharmacy.
Sharon F. Freedman,
MD made the America’s Best Eye Doctors 2021 List by Newsweek. She delivered the keynote Costenbader Lecture to open the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (AAPOS) Virtual Annual Meeting held April 9-11, 2021.
Sidney Gospe III,
MD, PhD received the 2021 Golden Globe Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to resident education in the Department of Ophthalmology.
Dilraj S. Grewal, MD
received the Fellow of the American Society of Retina Specialists (FASRS) designation.
Leon W. Herndon,
Jr., MD made the America’s Best Eye Doctors 2021 List by Newsweek.
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Glenn J. Jaffe, MD
received the Fellow of the American Society of Retina Specialists (FASRS) designation.
Terry Kim, MD
stepped down as 2020-2021 President of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS). Dr. Kim was invited to give the Bernard C. Gettes Lecture at the 74th Annual Wills Eye Conference in March 2022. He was also ranked in the top 3 out of 150 ophthalmologists in America’s Best Eye Doctors 2021 List by Newsweek.
Eleonora Lad, MD,
PhD was appointed Director of the Ophthalmology Clinical Research Unit. She was awarded a Prize Paper on Age-related Macula Degeneration at the Euretina meeting.
Katy Liu, MD, PhD
received a Duke 2021 PhysicianScientist “Strong Start” award.
Frank Moya, MD
was named medical director at Duke Eye Center of Winston-Salem.
Felipe Medeiros,
MD, PhD was an Optometric Glaucoma Society Honoree (the highest honor from OGS). He served as Helene-Boisjoly Lecturer, University of Montreal, Canada, Keynote Lecturer, Apple Inc. Display Conference, Keynote Lecturer, Florida Glaucoma Society, Keynote Lecturer, Spanish Glaucoma Society, Keynote Lecturer, Venezuelan Congress of Ophthalmology, and Visiting
Faculty Promotions
Catherine Bowes Rickman, PhD was named the George and Geneva Boguslavsky Professor of Eye Research Nathan Cheung, OD was promoted to Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology Melissa Daluvoy, MD was promoted to Associate Professor of Ophthalmology Sina Farsiu, PhD was named Professor with Tenure of Biomedical Engineering and Ophthalmology Divakar Gupta, MD was promoted to Associate Professor of Ophthalmology Charlene James, OD was promoted to Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology Eleonora G. Lad, MD, PhD earned tenure for her appointment Associate Professor of Ophthalmology S. Grace Prakalapakorn, MD earned tenure for her appointment Associate Professor of Ophthalmology
Professor, New York University Langone Medical Center.
Jullia Rosdahl, MD, PhD
authored the book Optical Coherence Tomography in Glaucoma.
Terry Semchyshyn, MD
was recognized as a Top Doctor for 2021 by Business North Carolina.
Dan Stamer,
PhD received the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Distinguished Service Award.
Cynthia Toth,
MD received the Jack Kanski medal from the World Society of Paediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (WSPOS) for contributions to the world of Pediatric Ophthalmology from someone who did not train in Pediatric Ophthalmology. She received the Retina Research Foundation’s Gertrude D. Pyron Award of the American Society of Retina Specialists. She also achieved the status of Life Fellow/ Member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology for dedication to lifelong learning and advancing standards of care.
Lejla Vajzovic, MD
received the Fellow of the American Society of Retina Specialists (FASRS) designation.
Lloyd Williams,
MD, PhD received 2021 Secretariat Award for his contributions to the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the field of ophthalmology.
Trainee Awards
The 2021-2022 Heed Fellowship was awarded to:
Michalak Quist Wisely Suzanne Michalak, MD Michael Quist, MD C. Ellis Wisely, MD, MBA
Oleg Alekseev,
MD, PhD received the Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) Small Grant Award through the Duke Eye Center Unrestricted Institutional Grant. This grant supports his research to develop novel therapeutics for retinitis pigmentosa. He is pursuing this work under the mentorship of Vadim Arshavsky, PhD.
Jordan Deaner,
MD received the 2021 Ronald G. Michels Foundation Fellowship Award.
Priya Gupta,
MD received the Retina Research Foundation/Joseph M. and Eula C. Lawrence Travel Grant for her project titled “A Complex Retinal Dystrophy-obesity Phenotype is Associated with Compound Heterozygous Loss-of-function TUB Gene Mutations” under the mentorship of Alessandro Iannaccone, MD, MS, FARVO. She was awarded a Clinical Research Fellowship Award through the Foundation Fighting Blindness to fund her research during her Inherited Retinal Dystrophy fellowship at Mass Eye and Ear. >
Alexander Snyder, MD Chief Resident
Third Year Residents (PGY4)
Amal Al-Lozi, MD Regina de Luna, MD Hesham Gabr, MD Priya Gupta, MD Kevin Jackson, MD Xinxin (Steph) Zhang, MD
Second Year Residents (PGY3)
Sahil Aggarwal, MD Eun Young (Alice) Choi, MD Andrew Gross, MD
S. Tammy Hsu, MD Katherine Peters, MD Yunbo (James) Tian, MD
First Year Residents (PGY2)
Nizar Abdelfattah, MD Rami Gabriel, MD Lucy Hui, MD Sri Meghana Konda, MD Richmond Woodward, MD Yuxi Zheng, MD
Interns (PGY1)
Modupe Adetunji, MD Kelly Donovan, MD, PhD Angela Li, MD Richard Morgan, MD, PhD Aaron Lindeke-Myers, MD Cason Robbins, MD
2021–2022 CLINICAL FELLOWS
Cornea
Brent Kramer, MD Kyle McKey, MD C. Ellis Wisely, MD, MBA
Glaucoma
Karun Arora, MD Christiana Gandy, MD, PhD Rajvi Mehta, MD Michael Quist, MD Mai Tsukikawa, MD, MS
Medical Retina
Guneet Mann, MBBS, MS Gabrielle Turski, MD
Neuro
Nelli Galoyan, MD, PhD
Oculofacial
Lauren May, MD Anagha Medsinge, MD Gabriel Scott, MD
Ocular Oncology
Abdulrahman Rageh, MD
Pediatrics
Matthew Haynie, MD Joshua Jones, MD Robert Tauscher, MD
Retinal Genetics
Oleg Alekseev, MD, PhD
Vitreoretinal Surgery
Jordan Deaner, MD Henry Feng, MD Grant Justin, MD Nita Valikodath, MD, MS
Duke Eye Center ranked #5 Best Overall Program by Ophthalmology Times.
(Advancing in every category from the previous year)
#3 Best Research Program #5 Best Clinical Care Program #5 Best Residency Program
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Tammy Hsu,
MD received an award for Top 10 Presentations for her work under the mentorship of Julie Woodward, MD, on the interactions of hyaluronidase with hyaluronic acid-based fillers at the 2021 Cosmetic Surgery Forum.
Grant Justin, MD
received the 2021 Achievement Award for his contributions made to the American Academy of Ophthlamology, its scientific and educational programs and to ophthalmology. He received the 2021 VitreoRetinal Surgery Foundation (VRSF) Award for his project “Evaluating the Retinal Structure and Microvasculature in Mild and Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury using Multimodal Retinal Imaging“ under the mentorship of Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS and Dilraj Grewal, MD.
Michael Quist,
MD was honored as The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) 2020 Copeland Fellow.
Cason Robbins,
MD received the Retina Research Foundation/ Joseph M. and Eula C. Lawrence Travel Grant for his project titled “Analyzing the Retinal and Choroidal Vasculature and Structure in Cognitively Healthy
Individuals at Higher Genetic Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease using a
Convolutional Neural Network” under the mentorship of Sharon
Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS and
Dilraj Grewal, MD. He received the departmental Research to
Prevent Blindness Small Grant
Award, Duke Eye Center for his project titled “Correlating retinal and choroidal microvascular parameters with volumetric MRI in Alzheimer’s disease and mild
Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) has granted the Duke University School of Medicine a $30,000 RPB Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship to enable Praruj Pant to take a year off from medical school and to devote that time to the pursuit of a research project within the Department of Ophthalmology. His project is titled “A cross-sectional study of multimodal ophthalmic imaging in three well-characterized cohorts Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, controls—from the Duke-University of North Carolina Alzheimer’s Disease Research Collaborative” under the mentorship of Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS and Dilraj Grewal, MD. Since it was founded in 1960, RPB has channeled more than $393 million into eye research. As a result, RPB has been identified with nearly every major breakthrough in vision research in that time. For information on RPB’s grants program, listings of RPB institutional and individual grantees, and findings generated by these awards, go to www.rpbusa.org.
cognitive impairment” under the mentorship of Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS and Dilraj Grewal, MD.
Nita Valikodath,
MD received the VitreoRetinal Surgery Foundation (VRSF) Award for her project, “Screening for Pediatric Retinal Diseases Using Artificial Intelligence and Wide-field Fundus Imaging” under the mentorship of Lejla Vajzovic, MD.
C. Ellis Wisely
MD, MBA received the departmental Research to Prevent Blindness Small Grant Award for his project titled “Correlation of aqueous humor and serum protein concentrations of amyloid, tau, neurofilament light chain, and alpha-synuclein with neurodegenerative disease” under the mentorship of Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS.
Steph Zhang,
MD received the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS) 2021 Resident Excellence Award.
Yuxi Zheng, MD
received the Top Poster Award for her work under the mentorship of Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS titled “Vitreomacular Status in Eyes with CRVO: Complete Vitreomacular Separation in Eyes with CRVO Predicts Treatment Burden and Clinical Outcomes” during the 2021 Women in Ophthalmology Summer Symposium.
Medical Student Awards
Dennis Akrobetu
received the Gerhard Zinser Memorial Travel Grant for his project titled “Assessment of Retinal Microvascular Alterations in Individuals with Amnestic and Non-amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment Using Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography” under the mentorship of Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS and Dilraj Grewal, MD.
Jennifer Chang
received the Knights Templar Eye Foundation Travel Grant for her project titled “Cost Comparison of Reusable versus Disposable Equipment for Retinopathy of Prematurity Screening Rounds” under the mentorship of S. Grace Prakalapakorn, MD, MPH and Sharon F. Freedman, MD with additional support from Dr. Evan Myers, MD, MPH.
Praruj Pant
received the 2021 VitreoRetinal Surgery Foundation (VRSF) Award for his project “Longitudinal assessment of choroidal vascularity index, subfoveal choroidal thickness, and central subfield thickness in treatment-naïve eyes with cystoid macular edema due to branch retinal vein occlusion compared to unaffected fellow eyes” under the mentorship of Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS. He received 3rd place at the NCSEPS 2021 Poster Competition for his collaborative project with trainees Xinxin Zhang, MD and Yuxi Zheng, MD titled “Vitreomacular status in eyes with CRVO” under the mentorship of Sharon Fekrat, MD, FACS, FASRS.
Camille Robinson
received the Knights Templar Eye Foundation Travel Grant for her project titled “Glaucoma Knowledge and Disease Severity in a Veteran Population with Poor Adherence.” Her mentors on the project are Jullia Rosdahl, MD, PhD and Kelly Muir, MD, as well as Duke glaucoma fellow Andrew Williams, MD.
Kai Seely was awarded the “Retina Research Foundation/ Joseph M. and Eula C. Lawrence Travel Grant” for ARVO 2021.
Alice Choi, MD, PGY2 presenting her poster at the 2021 Women in Ophthalmology conference.
