Our Team

Massaschustts Eye and Ear Profile

Biography

Dr. Tobias Elze is a computational vision scientist at Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass. Eye and Ear. His research addresses the methodology of basic and clinical vision science, such as optimal design of experiments and clinical studies and optimal data analysis (particularly for large and high-dimensional datasets). Dr. Elze's current projects include the functional characterization of eye diseases like glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and diabetic retinopathy, and the relationship between retinal structure and functional vision loss. Dr. Elze also develops adaptive sampling techniques for efficient clinical function testing and investigates display technology for clinical applications.

As a former member of the research group “Complex Structures in Biology and Cognition” at Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Dr. Elze focused on methodology in visual neuroscience and psychophysics. In 2011, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Peter Bex at Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass. Eye and Ear, where he started to investigate ophthalmic diseases using psychophysical and bioinformatical methods and machine learning. In 2013, he became an Instructor in Ophthalmology and in 2017 an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Elze was promoted to Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School in 2022. His group works at the intersection of mathematics, computer science, and clinical ophthalmology.

Dr. Mengyu Wang

Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology
Co-Director of Harvard Ophthalmology AI Lab
Schepens Eye Research Institute, Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School
Affiliate Faculty
Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence, Harvard University
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Harvard Data Science Initiative, Harvard University
Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Profiles

Twitter

Biography

Dr. Mengyu Wang (name in Chinese: 王孟渝) is a human and computer vision researcher with a faculty appointment in the Department of Ophthalmology of Schepens Eye Research Institute of Massachusetts Eye and Ear at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wang has a diverse research background, including ophthalmology, radiology, computational mechanics, image processing, and artificial intelligence (AI). For human vision, Dr. Wang's current research focuses on developing mathematical, mechanical, statistical, and AI models to enhance our knowledge and understanding of eye diseases and ultimately improve clinical treatment of eye diseases. For computer vision, Dr. Wang's current research is pivoted on innovating various fairness-promoting AI techniques to improve the performance equity of various AI models, including classification models (e.g., ResNet, EfficientNet, and ViT), segmentation models (e.g., Segment Anything Model and TransUNet), cross-domain adaptation and generalization models (e.g., DAFormer), vision language models (e.g., CLIP and BLIP), generative models (e.g., Diffusion Model), and self-supervised foundation models (e.g. Masked Autoencoder and CLIP).

In Dr. Mengyu Wang's personal life, he is an enthusiastic amateur in writing songs and music apart from playing guitar and piano. Here is an incomplete collection of his songs and music.

Dr. Nazlee Zebardast

Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology
Director of Glaucoma Imaging

Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Harvard Medical School

Profiles

Twitter

Biography

Nazlee Zebardast, MD, MSc, is the Director of Glaucoma Imaging and Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Zebardast has received the NIH K12 Harvard-Vision Clinical Scientist Training Program, the NIH K23 Career Development Award, the Research to Prevent Blindness Career Development Award, and the American Glaucoma Society Clinician Scientist Award. Dr Zebardast served on the American Academy of Ophthalmology Task Force of Enhancing Workforce Diversity, is a member of the American Glaucoma Society Research Committee, and currently serves as an editor for Ophthalmology and Ophthalmology Glaucoma and sits on the Associate Advisory Board for the World Glaucoma Association.

Dr. Zebardast’s current research focuses on developing precision medicine-based tools for disease detection, aiding clinicians in assessing for disease progression and eventually optimizing patient-related outcomes. She is currently working to define image-based and longitudinal endophenotypes for glaucoma using machine learning methods and to understand the genetic underpinning of vision loss in this blinding disease.

Dr. Mohammad Eslami

Instructor in Ophthalmology
Schepens Eye Research Institute
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Harvard Medical School

Profiles

Biography

Dr. Eslami is an electrical engineer whose interests are machine learning, machine vision, and optimization for medicine. He is particularly interested in interdisciplinary medical research activities including medical image and data analysis. He has been working in these areas since 2007 and has accomplished multiple projects and software.

Affiliate Faculty

Dr. Lucia Sobrin

Charles Edward Whitten Professor of Ophthalmology
Associate Chief of Clinical Data Science
Co-Director of the MEE Clinical Data Science Institute

Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Harvard Medical School

Profiles

Biography

Dr. Sobrin's research focuses on identifying genes associated with polygenic ophthalmic diseases, particularly diabetic retinopathy. She led a candidate gene association study of diabetic retinopathy within the Candidate gene Association Resource (CARe), which included patients from several large population-based cohorts as well as an admixture genetic association study for diabetic retinopathy in African Americans. Currently, she is the principal investigator a multi-ethnic genome-wide association study of diabetic retinopathy. She is also has an interest in ocular disease pharmacogenetics and is chair of the Genetics Committee for the DRCR.net.

Dr. Alice Lorch

Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology
Associate Chief for Quality for the Department of Ophthalmology
Associate Chief for Ophthalmic Education
Director of Ophthalmology Residency Training Program

Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Harvard Medical School

Profiles

Biography

Dr. Alice Lorch is a comprehensive ophthalmologist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. She is also the Program Director for the Harvard Ophthalmology Residency Program, the Co-Director of the Ophthalmic Telemedicine Fellowship, and the Associate Chief for Quality in Ophthalmology. Her research interests include quality reporting, patient-reported outcome measures, and tele-ophthalmology. She is the Co-PI for the Massachusetts Eye and Ear IRIS Registry Data Analytics Team.

Dr. Lucy Shen

Associate Professor of Ophthalmology
Director of Glaucoma Fellowship

Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Harvard Medical School

Profiles

Biography

As a clinician scientist, Dr. Shen's work primarily focuses on glaucoma detection and treatment. Of particular interest is how newer technologies, such as imaging, can be used to better monitor glaucoma. She is also studying how imaging may contribute to a clearer understanding of how disease originates and progresses. Additionally, Dr. Shen is also exploring treatment options for glaucoma in patients with Boston Keratoprosthesis (KPro), a type of artificial cornea. In addition to her clinical and research responsibilities, Dr. Shen teaches and mentors medical students, residents, and fellows. In collaboration with her colleagues, she also played a vital role in redesigning the training curriculum for senior residents. Currently, Dr. Shen is the director of the glaucoma fellowship at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.

Throughout her career, Dr. Shen has been honored with numerous awards and scholarships. In particular, the American Glaucoma Society has presented her with several accolades, including the Mid-Career Physician Scientist Grant Award, the Young Clinician Scientist Award, the Best Surgery Video Award, and the Mentoring for Advancement of Physician Scientists Award. She also received the Eleanor and Miles Fellowship from Harvard Medical School and the Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Dr. Michael Boland

Associate Professor of Ophthalmology
Assistant Chief Medical Information Officer for MEE, Mass General Brigham
Medical Director of Practice Innovation, Ophthalmology
Site Director, MEE Lexington

Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Harvard Medical School

Profiles

Biography

Michael Boland, M.D., Ph.D., is an Assistant Chief Medical Information Officer for Mass General Brigham, the Medical Director of Practice Innovation for Ophthalmology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Glaucoma Center of Excellence, providing medical and surgical care to glaucoma patients. His research has focused on applied clinical informatics and improving the diagnosis and management of glaucoma by analyzing the results of in-office testing.

In addition to working on medical information technology at his home institutions, he has served on the Medical Information Technology Committee of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, including as Co-Chair. He collaborated with DICOM Working Group 9 on standards for ophthalmology testing devices, leading the development of the DICOM standard for automated perimetry.

Dr. John Miller

Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology
Director of Retinal Imaging
Associate Director of Vitreoretinal Surgery Fellowship

Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Harvard Medical School

Profiles

Harvard Retinal Imaging Lab

Biography

John B. Miller, MD, is Director of Retinal Imaging, Associate Fellowship Director of Vitreoretinal Surgery Fellowship at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. He treats patients with advanced diabetic eye disease, age-related macular degeneration, vitreomacular interface diseases, retinal vascular diseases, and other maculopathies.

His research has focused on novel retinal imaging devices and new analysis techniques for existing instruments. Dr. Miller brought two different investigational Swept Source OCT and OCT-Angiography research platforms to Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Ophthalmology. With these devices, he has built one of the largest imaging databases with this technology. His research team has completed several projects furthering our understanding of both retinal microvasculature and the choroidal, a highly vascularized tissue deep under the retina that is harder to visualize and study.

Dr. Michael Morley

Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology

Schepens Eye Research Institute
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Harvard Medical School

Profiles