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Joel S. Schuman, MD, FACS, Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology

Joel S. Schuman is an American Ophthalmologist. His specialty is Glaucoma. He has been the Eye and Ear Foundation Professor and Chairman of Ophthalmology, the Eye and Ear Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Eye Center since 2004. He is also Professor of Bioengineering at the Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh and Director of the Louis J. Fox Center for Vision Restoration of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh. He is a member of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh. He became a Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh in September 2014.

Career

Dr. Schuman was born in Roslyn, NY. He has a degree in medicine from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. Prior to medical school, he attended Columbia University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Dr. Schuman completed his residency at the Medical College of Virginia in 1988 and went on to a two-year glaucoma and research fellowship at Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary. During this time he was also a Heed Fellow. Following his fellowship he spent one year on faculty at Harvard before moving to New England Medical Center and Tufts University where in 1991 he co-founded New England Eye Center. While there, Dr. Schuman was Residency Director and chief of the Glaucoma and Cataract Service. In 1998 he became Professor of Ophthalmology and Vice Chair in 2001.

Research

Dr. Schuman and his colleagues were the first to identify a molecular marker for human glaucoma. This discovery was published in Nature Medicine in 2001. The National Eye Institute has continuously funded Dr. Schuman as a principle investigator since 1995. He is principal investigator of a grant to study novel glaucoma diagnostics for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and co-investigator of NIH grants for research into novel optical diagnostics and short pulse laser surgery and for advanced imaging in glaucoma. Dr. Schuman has more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles published, has contributed to more than 50 book chapters and has edited or authored 8 books.

Dr. Schuman, along with Eric Swanson, James Fujimoto, Carmen Puliafito and David Huang, invented the optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology, an imaging system, considered revolutionary, in that it provides graphic details of the anatomy of the eye. This technology, allows a quick and noninvasive 3-D map of the eye, in particular the retina. It is one of the most powerful tools available for early detection of eye diseases such as glaucoma along with macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy and it is now a standard part of a patient’s eye care throughout the world. What started as one lone system at New England Eye Center, Tufts School of Medicine, in 1993 has now grown to more than 20,000 machines used daily throughout the world and providing a great impact on how patients are currently diagnosed and treated.

Awards and nominations

He received the Champalimaud Award, which is often referred to as the Nobel Prize in Vision and brings with it not only prestige but also a monetary award of $1.3 million euros which will allow continued research and development of OCT technology.