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News & Notes: Awards and Honors
Liliana Werner, MD, PhD, recognized as a foremost authority on intraocular lenses, has been selected for membership in the University of Utah’s elite H.A. and Edna Benning Medical Society as the recipient of one of 15 endowed chairs. Werner, co-director of the nonprofit Intermountain Ocular Research Center based at Moran, also received the Life Achievement Honor Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology for her “longstanding commitment to advancing the profession and positively impacting patients’ eye health.”
Gregory S. Hageman, PhD, received the University of Utah’s rank of distinguished professor. Hageman, renowned for his research into age-related macular degeneration, is the John A. Moran Presidential Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and executive director of Moran’s Sharon Eccles Steele Center for Translational Medicine. The honor is reserved for individuals whose achievements exemplify the highest goals of scholarship.
Bryan W. Jones, PhD, received a highly competitive $300,000 Stein Innovation Award from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) to support his lab’s innovative research into retinal circuitry/connectomics and metabolomics in neural plasticity in retinal diseases.
Rebecca Pfeiffer, PhD, received a Knights Templar Eye Foundation Career-Starter Research Grant. The $90,000 grant will support her research on the cellular mechanisms of pediatric retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic disease that can eventually cause blindness. Pfeiffer also received a four-year, $350,000 RPB Career Development Award, one of the organization’s leading awards to support outstanding vision scientists as they start and sustain independent research programs.
Rachel G. Simpson, MD, Moran’s vice chair of education and residency program director, has been accepted into the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s (AAO) prestigious Leadership Development Program.
Katherine Hu, MD, has been honored with the AAO’s 2024 Secretariat Award, which recognizes significant contributions to the Academy, including her advocacy engagement presentations to the Young Ophthalmologists program.
Bradley J. Katz, MD, PhD, earned the AAO’s Senior Achievement Award for contributions to the academy, its scientific and educational programs, and the ophthalmology field.
Silke Becker, PhD, has received an Early Career Development Award from the Intermountain Foundation at Primary Children’s Hospital. The $25,000 award will support her research into retinopathy of prematurity.
Guoxin Ying, PhD, has been awarded a Seed Grant from the University of Utah Research Foundation. The $50,000 grant supports his research on a novel approach of gene editing for the treatment of retinal degeneration in type II Usher Syndrome.
Iqbal Ike K. Ahmed, MD, FRCSC, director of the Alan S. Crandall Center for Glaucoma Innovation, and Jeff Pettey, MD, MBA, vicechair of clinical affairs, received Gold Medal awards from the Intraocular Implant Refractive Society of India at its 2024 meeting.
