Lighthouse International Honors Robert W. Massof, PhD with the Prestigious 2009 Pisart Vision Award (Archive)
November 16, 2009* …Dr. Robert W. Massof has been selected as the winner of the 2009 Pisart Vision Award.
The annual award, which will be presented to him on November 18, 2009 at Lighthouse International Headquarters in New York City, will be given to Dr. Massof as testimony to the contributions he has made to change the way the world views, studies, and treats vision impairment. Dr. Massof is Professor of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience, Founder and Director of the Lions Vision Research and Rehabilitation Center, Wilmer Eye Institute at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, and has joint appointments in Computer Science at the John Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering and Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, MD.
Massof has made a series of important contributions including studies into Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), development of the Low Vision Enhancement System, developing system models for low vision rehabilitation, facilitating the measuring of low vision outcomes and championing policy reform for low vision rehabilitation.
In addition, Dr. Massof has authored more than 160 published scientific papers and book chapters, is the editor of Issue in Low Vision Rehabilitation: Service Delivery, Policy and Funding and the low vision rehabilitation section of Albert and Jacobiek’s Principles and Practice of Ophthalmology. He holds five patents and three software copyrights on instruments that he has developed. He has given more than 120 lectures, five named lectures and has held several visiting professorships.
Now in its 30th year, the Pisart Award is partially funded by Mme Georgette Pisart, a longtime Lighthouse Volunteer. The prestigious award honors an outstanding leader who has made an extraordinary contribution to the prevention, cure and treatment of severe vision impairment or blindness. The award carries a prize of $40,000 and a replica of the Pisart sculpture. This year Lighthouse International received applications from across the globe. Selection is made by an independent panel of judges who are leaders in various disciplines concerned with vision.
