About ISRS

Deepinder K. Dhaliwal, MD, L.Ac, is a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and serves as Vice Chair (for Communications and Wellness) and Chief of Refractive Surgery in the Department of Ophthalmology at the UPMC Vision Institute. Dr. Dhaliwal is also the Director of the UPMC Laser Vision Center, the associate Medical Director of the Campbell Ophthalmic Microbiology Laboratory and Clinical Co-Director of the Corneal Stem Cell Task Force at the University of Pittsburgh. 

Dr. Dhaliwal earned her medical degree from Northwestern University, and completed her residency in ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh.  She then completed a prestigious fellowship in cornea and refractive surgery at the University of Utah.  She became a licensed acupuncturist in 2006 and founded the Center for Integrative Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh to systematically research holistic treatments for eye disease.  Her other research interests include corneal regeneration, dry eye disease, ocular microbiology, and pediatric refractive surgery.

Dr Dhaliwal is passionate about leadership and service. She currently serves as the president of the International Society of Refractive Surgery, and is president-elect of the Cornea Society. As a recognized expert in her field, she is invited to teach corneal and refractive surgical techniques to ophthalmologists around the world. In addition to teaching and research activities, she has authored several book chapters, numerous journal articles, and serves on the editorial board of several ophthalmology journals. In recognition of her clinical and surgical skills, she has been selected as a “Top Doctor” by her peers every year since 2006, has received the Senior Achievement Award by the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and has been selected to be on The Ophthalmologist Power List which recognizes the Top 100 in the world.

Dr. Soosan Jacob, MS, FRCS, DNB, MNAMS is Director & Chief; Dr. Agarwal’s Refractive and Cornea Foundation (DARCF) and Senior Consultant, Cataract and Glaucoma Services, Dr. Agarwal’s Group of Eye Hospitals, Chennai, India. She is a noted speaker widely respected for her innovative techniques and management of complex surgical scenarios.

She has been ranked among the top 20 (17^th) Ophthalmologists worldwide in the prestigious Power List of Ophthalmologists 2024 published by “The Ophthalmologist,” a leading publication in the field (https://powerlist.theophthalmologist.com/) and is one among only three women in this list. She has also been previously listed on the Power Lists 2022 and 2021 of the Top 100 most influential people in the world of Ophthalmology (https://bit.ly/38IbZ2c, https://bit.ly/37RftPI) and the Top 100 most influential women Ophthalmologists in the world (https://bit.ly/2OqESpQ, https://bit.ly/3fOfIwF). She has been featured as one among five of the most influential female figures in ophthalmology at a virtual roundtable (https://bit.ly/3oPPaO8) and has been included in the KOL Influencers list of 50 notable global figures in Ophthalmology by Media MICE, another leading and influential Ophthalmic publication in consequent years. In addition, she is listed consecutively in Stanford's 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 lists of top 2 percentile scientists from around the world (published by Elsevier). She has close to 30,000 followers on her various social media handles.

She is the recipient of the following prestigious International awards: JRS (Journal of Refractive Surgery) Waring medal for Editorial excellence; ISRS (International Society of Refractive Surgery) Kritzinger Memorial award (the first Indian and the first woman internationally to receive this award); ISRS Founder’s award (the first Indian to receive this award); Innovator’s award (Connecticut Society of Eye Physicians); ESCRS (European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery) John Henahan award for Young Ophthalmologist; AAO (American Academy of Ophthalmology) International Ophthalmologist Education Award; AAO International Scholar award; AAO Achievement award; AAO Senior Achievement award; AAO Secretariat award; ASCRS (American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery) Top-Gun Instructor Award; Bruce Jackson oration (Canadian Ophthalmological Society); Harold Stein Innovator lecture (Canadian Ophthalmological Society); Ronald G. Michels Lectureship (Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University); Sally Letson Oration (Sally Letson Symposium, Canada); Vesna Morela Innovational lecture (Ljubljana Refractive Society, Slovenia) and is also a two time recipient of ASCRS Golden Apple award and also the prestigious Indian awards: IIRSI (Intraocular Implant and Refractive Society of India) Special Gold medal; UKSOS Gold medal (Uttarakhand); AM Gokhale award and oration (Pune Ophthalmic Society); Dr. TN Gopinathan Menon memorial Oration award & gold medal (Cochin Ophthalmic Club), Dr P R Mondal Memorial Oration Award (Ophthalmic Society of West Bengal), the Silver Jubilee Ishwarchandra Oration Award (Vidarbha Ophthalmic Society), Diva Eye Institute Oration (All Gujarat Ophthalmological Society) and TNOA SS Badrinath SOA SN Alumni Award of Honor. In addition, she has won more than 50 prestigious international awards for her surgical videos as well as Best Paper of Session awards on her innovations and challenging cases at prestigious international conferences in United States and Europe.

She conducts courses and delivers lectures in numerous national and international conferences. She has delivered Keynote lectures at various international and national conferences including the recent (2018) Swiss Society of Ophthalmology annual conference and 2019 annual conference of Ophthalmological Society of Sweden. She has been invited twice to teach her techniques and innovations by Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, USA which is the number 1 ranked Eye Institute in the world, to Wilmer Eye Institute - Johns Hopkins University, Yale University and also to many other hospitals including King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital, Riyadh; Jules Gonin Eye Institute, Swizerland; Sao Geraldo Hospital, Brazil and many others. She has been the Program director for the International Society of Refractive Surgery (ISRS) Symposium at the ESCRS, Paris 2019 as well as the Program Coordinator Asia-Pacific for Refractive Surgery Program for the World Ophthalmology Congress, Cape Town 2020.

She has authored more than 120 peer reviewed publications (bit.ly/2GfduD0), more than 200 chapters in 34 textbooks and is editor for 17 Ophthalmology textbooks and reviewer for many prestigious journals. She has helped shape scientific sessions of important events by holding key positions such as Program Director - ISRS Symposium, ESCRS 2019, Paris; Member - Refractive Surgery Program Committee, World Ophthalmology Conference, 2020, Cape Town, South Africa, Executive Committee member GERSO, Chair- Cornea Committee GERSO among others.

She is President Elect and Secretary ISRS (International Society of Refractive Surgery), past Chair of the Multimedia Editorial Board ISRS, Associate Editor Journal of Refractive Surgery, Associate Editor Journal of Refractive Surgery Case Reports, Section Editor (Refractive Surgery) - EyeNet (American Academy of Ophthalmology), Executive Committee member- Global Education and Research Society of Ophthalmology -GERSO, Council Board Member of the GERSO (the first woman member on the GERSO council and one of the initial members who helped shape its aims and objectives), Chair of the Cornea Committee - GERSO and is on editorial board of Indian Journal of Ophthalmology, EyeNet (AAO), EuroTimes, IJKECD, Ocular Surgery News-AsiaPacific, Glaucoma Today, Cataract and Refractive Surgery Today-Europe, Medical Hypothesis in Optometry, Tamil Nadu Ophthalmic Association-JOSR and Ophthalmology & Therapy.

She has special interest in cutting edge cataract, cornea, glaucoma, complex anterior segment reconstruction and refractive surgery. Her innovations, many of which have won international awards, include anterior segment transplantation, where cornea, sclera, artificial iris, pupil and IOL are transplanted enbloc for anterior staphyloma; suprabrow single stab incision ptosis surgery to enhance postoperative cosmesis; turnaround techniques for false channel dissection during Intacs implantation; Glued Endo-Capsular Ring, Glued Capsular Hook and the Paper clip capsule stabilizer for subluxated cataracts; Stab Incision Glaucoma Surgery (SIGS) as a guarded filtration surgery technique; Contact lens assisted crosslinking (CACXL) for safely crosslinking thin keratoconic corneas; Endo-illuminator assisted DMEK (E-DMEK), Air Pump Assisted PDEK and host Descemetic scaffolding for easier and better surgical results; PrEsbyopic Allogenic Refractive Lenticule (PEARL) Inlay for treating presbyopia, Corneal Allogeneic Intrastromal ring Segment (CAIRS), Customized CAIRS and Custom shaped CAIRS for Keratoconus and other corneal ectasias; the Jacob modified technique for pre-Descemetic DALK as a primary treatment for acute hydrops; sutureless SMILE lenticule assisted resurfacing with interface tattooing for limbal dermoid; Temporary Pupillary Scaffolding for positive vitreous pressure in penetrating keratoplasty, White Ring sign and the Sequential segmental terminal lenticular side cut dissection for safe and effective lenticule extraction in SMILE surgery She has proposed a new classification of Descemet’s membrane detachments into rhegmatogenous, tractional, bullous and complex detachments with a suitable treatment algorithm and a new technique of relaxing descemetotomy for bullous and tractional Descemet’s detachment.

Her surgeries and surgical techniques have often been Editor’s Choice in prestigious International Ophthalmic websites (AAO/ ONE network, ISRS, Eyetube etc). She has two popular bimonthly columns, “Complications in Cataract and Refractive Surgery” and “Everything you want to know about” in the prestigious EuroTimes magazine published by ESCRS. She has her own surgical educational YouTube channel: Dr. Soosan Jacob with more than 10,000 subscribers (goo.gl/9STje0). Her video blog “Journey into the Eye - A surgeon’s Video blog” in the prestigious Ocular Surgery News, USA and her Facebook pages also feature her surgical videos. Dr. Jacob is senior faculty for training postgraduate, fellowship and overseas doctors.

Her life and work have been featured on the Ocular Surgery News cover page (bit.ly/2P8tWsY), “5Q” interview (prestigious Cataract and Refractive Surgery Today – CRST: bit.ly/2DcT3Gp), “Sound off” column (CRSToday: https://bit.ly/2VKRV3T), “One Day in the Life of…” (CRST: bit.ly/2IyBlR1; bit.ly/2UxR6yW;) and “Around the World” column (MillenialEye: bit.ly/2GdmqZS) and is also the first researcher internationally to be interviewed in the prestigious CRST “Researcher’s Column”(bit.ly/2X9iKPC). In addition, her work has been featured extensively in the print version as well as through video interviews by EyeWorld, EyeNet AAO, EuroTimes, Ophthalmology Times, OSN-Healio, CRST, Glaucoma Today, Ophthalmologist, Review of Ophthalmology and others. She is active academically on Facebook (www.facebook.com/soosan.jacob.1; www.facebook.com/drsoosanjacob/), LinkedIn (in.linkedin.com/in/soosan-jacob-b028411), Twitter (@drsoosanjacob) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/dr.soosanjacob/). She can be contacted at dr_soosanj@hotmail.com.

Dr Smadja is the director of the refractive surgery unit of the ophthalmology department at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, and medical director of the Ein-Tal Hadassah laser institutes. He also serves as the current elected president of the Israeli Society of Refractive Surgery and is on the executive board committee of the International Society of Refractive Surgery.

He is a board-certified ophthalmologist from the French, Israeli and European board of ophthalmology, focused on refractive surgery, cataract and keratoconus. He completed a Post Doctorate Research Fellowship in Cornea and Refractive Surgery at the Cole Eye Institute, at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 2010. In 2015, he joined the Nanotechnology Institute of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, as an adjunct researcher associate at Prof Zalevsky’s laboratory.

Dr. Smadja has been recognized with multiple prestigious national and international awards including the Troutman award and Waring memorial award from the International Society of Refractive Surgery (ISRS), the achievement award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), the gold medal from the Indian Intraocular and Refractive Society (IIRS), the Colin Award from the French society of cataract and refractive society (SAFIR) and the outstanding prize from the Israeli society for vision and eye research (ISVER).

Dr Smadja is also an active entrepreneur and co-founder and president of NanoDrops, and Israeli based startup company developing a new visual botox solution for visual correction and is consultant for various ophthalmic companies and venture capitals.

Sonia H. Yoo, MD, is currently professor of ophthalmology with a joint appointment in biomedical engineering and associate medical director at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She is holds the Greentree Hickman endowed chair in ophthalmology.  Dr. Yoo received her BA at Stanford University in California and her MD at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. She completed residency and fellowship at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary of Harvard Medical School in 1998.

Dr. Yoo’s areas of clinical practice are cornea, cataract, and refractive surgery. Her research interests are in laser applications in cornea, cataract and refractive surgery.  She holds several patents and has authored more than 200 book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles as well as serving as the principal investigator in numerous drug and device trials.

The Ophthalmologist Power List 2024 and 2018 honored Dr. Yoo as one of the Top 100 most influential people in the world of ophthalmology.   She was also named on the 2021 Power List featuring the 100 Top Women in Ophthalmology.  She has served as the program chair of the Refractive Surgery subspecialty day program of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and received the International Society of Refractive Surgery’s prestigious Founder’s Award for her accomplishments in cataract and refractive surgery. She has been the chief editor for Refractive Surgery Outlook since 2020 published by the International Society of Refractive Surgery of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and she serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Refractive Surgery.

Dr. George Waring IV is an award winning, internationally recognized leader in cataract surgery. He has been recognized as one of the 100 most influential people in the world of ophthalmology by The Ophthalmologist, and consistently as one of the nation’s Top Doctors by Castle Connolly. Dr. Waring and colleagues originally described the Dysfunctional Lens Syndrome. He introduced the first laser-assisted cataract surgery with the Catalys laser in the state of South Carolina. Beyond his impressive credentials, Dr. Waring built his practice on a world class client experience and world class outcomes. You can expect concierge style service and an experience that is luxurious and comfortable.

Dr. Ashvin Agarwal is the Chief Clinical Officer at Dr. Agarwal's Eye Hospital, a premier eye care group spanning over 170+ locations globally. In this capacity, he spearheads initiatives vital to maintaining the organization's clinical excellence and fostering its expansion.

Dr. Agarwal has been honored with the prestigious Golden Apple Award from ASCRS and esteemed Secretariat award from American Academy of Ophthalmology accolade, underscoring his profound contributions to the field. Additionally, his prolific scholarly output includes over 25 publications and the authorship of 10 seminal books, reflecting his dedication to advancing knowledge in ophthalmology.

Dr. Trattler is the Director of Cornea at the Center For Excellence in Eye Care, in Miami, Florida, and is a Board-Certified ophthalmologist focusing on cataract, corneal and refractive surgeries, as well as MIGS procedures and Crosslinking. Dr. Trattler received his bachelor’s degree with honors from Dartmouth College and his Doctorate of Medicine degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine where he graduated with Distinction in Research. He completed his ophthalmology residency at University of Pennsylvania, Scheie Eye Institute & then spent an additional year for subspecialty training in Cornea and Refractive Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Dr. Trattler is the Past US President of the American-European Congress of Ophthalmic Surgery (AECOS). He is on the Executive Board of the International Society of Refractive Surgery (ISRS) and previously served on the Executive Board of the Cornea Society. He has participated in more than 70 clinical trials, and has been an author in more than 60 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Trattler served as the Program Director of the Advanced Refractive Congress (ARC), and is currently the Co-program Director for AECOS Deer Valley. He also serves on the planning committee for Hawaiian Eye, OSN NY, Telling it Like it is, Modern Optometry Live, and the Cedars/Aspens Annual meeting.

Dr. Trattler has 4 children (Ali, Jeremy, Josh and Danny), and is married to Jennifer Loh, MD. He is an avid skier (medalist at the AECOS Aspen Annual Ski Race for the 14 of the past 16 years) and has been the team ophthalmologist (with his father) for the past 15 years for the local NBA franchise.

Sheraz Daya is the Medical Director of Centre for Sight. He trained in New York and Minneapolis and practiced in New York for two years before becoming Director and Consultant at the Corneoplastic Unit and Eye Bank Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, UK. Dr Daya transformed the Corneoplastic Unit and Eye Bank, acquiring an international reputation for excellence in Corneal surgery. 

Dr. Daya is a key opinion leader for the ophthalmic industry and is highly regarded nationally and internationally and voted on the Ophthalmologist Power List of top 100 surgeons in the world 2018, 2019 and 2020. He serves on numerous boards and committees and is also the founding Chief Medical Editor of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Today. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is known as for many innovations in ophthalmology. He has delivered many medal lectures in the US (Whitney Sampson), Greece (Fyodorov Award), Canada W Bruce Jackson Award), and UK (Choyce Medal). Mr. Daya was recognised for his leadership by winning the award “Leadership in Improvement” of the Best of Health Awards 2009, South East England. He has also been awarded the Senior Achievement Award and a Lifetime Fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology for his contribution to Ophthalmology. He is also recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award from the International Society of Refractive Surgery. and is currently President of the American European Congress of Ophthalmic Surgery

Uday Devgan is ranked as the number 1 eye surgeon in California and number 2 in the USA (out of more than 15,000 ophthalmologists). He is in private practice, specializing in cataract and refractive surgery, at Devgan Eye Surgery in Los Angeles and a full partner at Specialty Surgical Center in Beverly Hills, California. He is honored to have performed cataract surgery for more than 70 fellow eye surgeons and he knows that this personal recognition from your peers is far more important than a celebrity endorsement. Patients from all over the USA (and from other countries) fly to Los Angeles to have their cataract surgery with Dr. Devgan. A leading eye surgery journal deemed Uday Devgan MD as 1 of the top 25 leaders in ophthalmology of the last 25 years. He has been honored as 1 of the World’s Top 100 influential leaders by The Ophthalmologist.

Dr Devgan is also passionate about teaching ocular surgery, particularly cataract surgery, to the next generation of ophthalmologists. He has previously served as full clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute at the UCLA School of Medicine as well as Chief of Ophthalmology at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center and has been actively involved in resident surgical teaching for over two decades. Dr. Devgan is humbled to have won the most Surgical Professor Teaching Awards (5x) in the history of UCLA Ophthalmology. He continues to mentor former residents after the culmination of their training and is proud to say that he has directly mentored nearly 200 residents over the course of thousands of ocular surgeries.

Uday has been involved in consulting with many ophthalmic companies over the course of the past two decades and has participated in designing instruments, developing surgical platforms, evolving surgical techniques, and innovating new technologies.

He has been named one of the top key opinion leaders in ophthalmology and he has taught ocular surgery in more than 60 countries to tens of thousands of fellow ophthalmologists. Dr Devgan runs CataractCoach.com which has 2,300 teaching videos/articles and boasts 100,000 subscribers with more than 30 million views and growing. He also developed an entire curriculum series, a free cataract surgery book, and now the top podcast in ophthalmology. He writes regular columns in multiple ophthalmic journals and his Back to Basics monthly feature in the journal Ocular Surgery News about the fundamentals of ophthalmic surgery has been distributed to 80,000 ophthalmologists worldwide for more than fifteen years.

Dr. Devgan is a leader in ophthalmic consulting and lecturing services for organizations and industry, and has performed live surgery events at many major ophthalmic meetings. If you would like to invite Dr. Devgan to speak at your meeting, please use the contact page. In addition, his charity surgical mission trips have taken him around the globe. Most recently he has started a revolutionary bio-mathematical company (IOLcalc.com), helped develop an innovative truly accommodating lens implant (LensGen.com), and is involved with fully robotic cataract surgery (Horizon Surgical).

The Jules Stein Eye Institute / UCLA Department of Ophthalmology Annual Faculty Teaching Award is given to one professor per year, chosen from the more than 100 faculty members. Dr. Devgan is the only professor to have earned this award twice, then three times, then four times, and now an unprecedented five times.

Roger Zaldivar, MD, MSc, MBA, is a cataract and refractive surgeon at the Zaldivar Institute in Mendoza, Argentina. Passionate about teaching, he currently co-directs Instituto Zaldivar´s Cataract and Refractive Surgery Fellowship.

He has authored a variety of peer reviewed papers, book chapters and articles and has travelled across the globe to deliver 200+ presentations pertaining his clinical and research interests in ocular surface disease, intraocular lenses, phakic IOLs and LASIK. He earned an MBA at the Polytechnical University of Catalunya and a Physician CEO specialization at Kellogg Executive School of Management, Northwestern University, which he applies to his role as CEO of the Zaldivar Institute, a multi-specialty facility comprised of 60+ doctors who provide patients with a full spectrum of ophthalmic services. Dr Zaldivar has embraced innovation as his motivation to practice medicine. He currently owns 6 utility patents regarding improved intraocular lens designs. He is a scientific consultant for many international companies including Johnson & Johnson Vision and Staar Surgical. He is member of the Refractive Surgery Committee of the ASCRS and is the former president of the Refractive Surgery Alliance. Finally, he is the founder and CEO of RevaiCare LLC, a digital health startup focused on collaborative care and artificial intelligence to improve clinical results in medicine.

Prof Jodhbir Mehta currently helms as the Deputy Medical Director (Research), Distinguished Professor in Clinical Innovation in Ophthalmology, Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC) and Academic Vice-Chair (Research) with the SingHealth Duke-NUS Ophthalmology and Visual Science Academic Clinical Programme. He holds concurrent appointments as Executive Director of the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) and heads the Tissue Engineering and Cell Therapy Research Group at SERI. He also serves as Senior Consultant and former Head of the Cornea and External Eye Disease Department at SNEC. Furthermore, he is a tenured Professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School.

A highly accomplished Clinician Scientist, Prof Mehta has been making instrumental contributions both internationally and in the Asia Pacific region. Clinically, he is one of the leading specialist in the world on corneal diseases and refractive surgical procedures; while academically he has demonstrated a remarkable track record in publications and securing funding among others. His research interests span outstandingly across all aspects of corneal external disease and refractive surgery, with corneal transplantation research as the key focus.

Directing a strong multi-disciplinary team and partnering a wide network of collaborators, Prof Mehta has driven various research projects successfully, many of which have produced breakthroughs and patents with high translational potential.

Prof Mehta exhibits a prolific publication records, with over 520 peer-reviewed papers in acclaimed international journals and authored over 24 book chapters. He has earned a high H-index of 73 (with over 20,500 citations. He has published in NEJM, Lancet, Lancet Resp Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Review Disease Primers, as well as high impact eye journals e.g. PRER, Ophthalmology. He has filed 24 patents from his research work, of which 6 have been commercialised and licensed to companies. As a leader of one of the top research programmes at SERI, he has received several competitive research grants, achieving over $15 million as Principal Investigator. As a further reflection of his high standing in the global ophthalmology community; he is currently ranked number 1 in the world for expertise in Cornea and number 2 for Refractive surgery on expertscape.com. He has given over 350 invited lectures and given 19 named lectures; and serves the editorial board of several ophthalmic and visual sciences journals.

Beyond research, Prof Mehta is a committed educator. Apart from lecturing and teaching various local and international courses, he also supervises and mentors Transition awards (NMRC), Foundation grant (Singhealth), NIG (NMRC), junior clinicians, fellows (over 30 local and international fellows), researchers (PhD and MSc students) and undergraduate students.

Prof Mehta has received many international awards for the excellent contributions and achievements from his research, clinical and educational endeavours. Some of his accolades include the Nakajima Award (Asia Pacific Academy for Ophthalmology, 2013), Senior Achievement Award (American Academy of Ophthalmology, 2017 and 2023), Doug Coster Lecture (Australia and New Zealand Cornea Society, 2018), Charles Tilett Lecture (Fuchs Society, USA, 2020), Casebeer Award (International Society of Refractive Surgery, AAO, 2020), and the Charles McGhee Medal (BSRS, Oxford UK, 2023), APAO Senior Achievement Award 2023, ACE Award APACRS 2023. Recently, he has been awarded the 2024 NMEA National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award by the Ministry of Health (MOH).