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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 completed her medical degree at Yale School of Medicine, followed by Ophthalmology residency training and glaucoma fellowship at Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2018.

Dr. Zebardast is a clinician scientist and specializes in the treatment of adult glaucoma and combined glaucoma and cataracts. She was selected for the NIH/NEI-funded K12 Harvard-Vision Clinical Scientist Training Program as well as the Gliklich Innovation Scholarship program in 2019. She is currently funded by an NIH K23 career development award, an NIH R21 award, Research to Prevent Blindness Career development award and the American Glaucoma Society Clinician Scientist Award.

Dr. Zebardast has received numerous awards and honors for her academic and research accomplishments and has published in many top ophthalmology journals. She has made significant contributions to global epidemiologic research having helped established the Indian Family Angle Closure Evaluation with colleagues at Aravind Eye Institute in Southern India. Her work has shed light on sociodemographic disparities in care of glaucoma patients. Her research on comparative effectiveness and outcomes in glaucoma surgery had helped delineate which patients may benefit most from these procedures.

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. This work aims to combine clinical phenotypes and genetic background to improve assessment of disease risk for any individual.  

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.