"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."
- Helen Keller
The Helen Keller Prize
Awards are important; they are public statements of our aspirations. The Helen Keller Laureates provide invaluable examples of roads well traveled, inspiring promising new researchers to choose their own paths more wisely. Therefore the Foundation considers the Helen Keller Prize Program to be among its most important efforts to end blindness.
The Foundation Board believes that vision research will advance in direct proportion to the public's awareness and understanding of research on eye disease and injury. With the establishment of the Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research in May 1994, the Foundation dramatically began its efforts to promote public recognition of vision research.
The Helen Keller Prize has been embraced by the vision research community, a veritable army of 20,000 scientists and clinicians worldwide who labor to preserve the precious gift of sight for future generations. The Foundation believes that the Helen Keller Prize will ultimately become a powerful public symbol of their efforts.
Helen Keller Laureates are selected by an international panel of biomedical researchers and physicians. The Prize ceremony occurs at the annual convention of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), an international conclave that attracts more than 13,000 scientists and physicians. Keller Johnson, a great niece of Helen Keller, awards the prize to the Laureate.
Recipients of The Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research:
(Click each name below to read the recipient's biography.)
Christopher A. Paterson, Ph.D., D.Sc.
Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Louisville School of Medicine
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Past President, International Society of Eye Research
Past President, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
Ronald E. Smith, M.D.
Professor and Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology
University of Southern California School of Medicine
Doheny Eye Institute
Los Angeles, California, USA
Past President, American Academy of Ophthalmology
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
J. Bronwyn Bateman, M.D.
Professor of Ophthalmology, Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Institute
Denver Health Medical Center
University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado, USA
Past President, Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology
Carlos Belmonte, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Director, Institute of Neurosciences of Alicante
University Miguel Hernandez-CSIC
Alicante, Spain
Past President, International Society of Eye Research
Alan Bird, M.D.
Honorary Consultant, Moorfields Eye Hospital
Emeritus Professor, Institute of Ophthalmology
University College
London, England
Nicholas A. Delamere, Ph.D.
Professor and Head, Department of Physiology
University of Arizona College of Medicine
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Joe G. Hollyfield, Ph.D.
Llura and Gordon Gund Professor of Ophthalmology Research
Cole Eye Institute
Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine,
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Past President, International Society for Eye Research
Past President, ARVO
Alfred Sommer, M.D., M.H.S.
Bloomberg School of Public Heath
Johns Hopkins University
Professor Hugh R. Taylor AC
Harold Mitchell Professor of Indigenous Eye Health
Melbourne School of Population Health
The University of Melbourne
Sheila K. West, Ph.D.
El-Maghraby Professor of Preventive Ophthalmology, Dana Center for Preventive Ophthalmology
Wilmer Eye Institute
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Past President, International Society of Geographic Epidemiology & Ophthalmology
Past President, ARVO
