NEI Research Travel Grant

Awardees Announced
 

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2026 NEI Research Travel Grants. These medical students, ophthalmology residents, fellows, or those in their first five years of ophthalmic practice (as of August 2026) who plan to contribute to global ophthalmology and research will attend and present their posters at the 2026 Global Ophthalmology Summit.

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• Gokulvasanth Deivasenathipathi (India):  A Wasted Day or A Wasted Sight? Monetary Benefit Analysis of No-Cost Opt-In Preventive Eye Care Screening for Patient Companions

• Neil Dogra (United States): Visual Impairment and Frailty in Rural Southern India: Findings from the Andhra Pradesh Eye Disease Study

• Edinam Hutton-Mensah (Ghana): Locally-Affiliated Authorship in Global Eye Health Research Conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa between 2003 and 2022

• Milap Mistry (United States): Is Language Discordance a Barrier to Ophthalmologic Care?

• Georgie Nahass (United States): A Regulatory Blueprint for International Dataset Curation in Clinical Computer Vision

• Christian Raimondo (United States): Functional Assessment of Glaucoma Without Visual Field Testing Using Fundus Photography and Deep Learning

• Fatma Shakarchi (United States): Eyes Without Borders: Evidence, Barriers, and Strategies for Eye Care in Migrant Populations

• Abdullah Virk (United States): Intersecting Epidemics and Systemic Gaps: The Rising Burden of Diabetes, Diabetic Retinopathy, and Glaucoma in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Joshua Yu (United States): Global Disparities in Inherited Retinal Disease: A Systematic Scoping Review

• Evan Afshin (United States): VFMatch: Using AI to Create a Platform for Efficient Ophthalmic Care Across Low- and Middle-Income Countries

• Hassan Asadigandomani (United States): Beyond Diagnosis: AI-Based Surgical Risk Assessment in Acanthamoeba Keratitis with Real-World Validation

• Julia Faust (United States): Xen Gel Stent in a Resource-Limited Setting: Short-Term Outcomes and Implementation Lessons

• Scott Herrod (United States): The Epidemiology of Lower Eyelid Trichiasis Among Trachomatous Trichiasis Patients: An Analysis of the Fluorometholone as Adjunctive Medical Therapy for Trachomatous Trichiasis Surgery (FLAME) Trial

• Ethan James (United States): Evaluating Multimodal Large Language Models for Real-World Ophthalmic Triage Using Handheld Imaging

• Sanjana Molleti (United States): Determining the Prevalence of CMV Retinitis in HIV-Associated Meningitis Patients in Uganda

• Agnes Owete (United States): First Cornea Transplants in Sierra Leone: A Review of Outcomes and Impact

• Bhakti Panchal (United States): Implementation of AI-Based Diabetic Retinopathy Screening at Community Health Events in Baltimore

• Oase Sbei (United States): Rebuilding Ophthalmic Care in Post-Conflict Syria: A 1.5-Year Systems-Level Approach to Infrastructure, Training, and Subspecialty
  Development

• Konstantina Theodosaki (United Kingdom): Ophthalmic Care in Island Settings: A Comparative Service Model Between the Falklands, Scottish Isles, and Channel Islands

• Jared Tuttle (United States): Workflow Integration and Comparative Validity of Handheld Wavefront Autorefraction in Navajo School-Based Outreach

• Kalekirstos Taye Wagaw (Ethiopia): Retinopathy of Prematurity Among Infants Admitted to Two Neonatal Intensive Care Units in Ethiopia

• Ha-Neul Yu (United States): Baseline Predictors for the Postoperative trachomatous trichiasis following lid rotation surgery in the Fluorometholone as Adjunctive Medical
  Therapy for TT Surgery (FLAME) Trial

• Yi Zhou (United States): Global Trends in Pediatric Uveitis: A Meta-Epidemiological Investigation of Regional and Economic Factors​​​

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