Joel S. Schuman
Joel S. Schuman, MD, FACS is Professor of Ophthalmology, the Kenneth L. Roper Endowed Chair, Vice Chair for Research Innovation, co-director of the Glaucoma Service at Wills Eye Hospital, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Collaborative Community of Ophthalmic Imaging president, and American Glaucoma Society Foundation advisory board chair. Prior to this he was the Elaine Langone Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at NYU Langone Medical Center, NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Professor of Neural Science in the Center for Neural Science at NYU College of Arts and Sciences. He chaired the ophthalmology department at NYU Langone Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine 2016–2020, and was Vice Chair for Ophthalmology Research in the department 2020–2022. Prior to arriving at NYU in 2016, he was Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Ophthalmology, Eye and Ear Foundation Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology, Director of UPMC Eye Center and before that was at Tufts University 1991–2003, where he was Residency Director and Glaucoma and Cataract Service Chief. In 1998 he became Professor of Ophthalmology, and Vice Chair in 2001.
Research
Dr. Schuman and his colleagues were first to identify a molecular marker for human glaucoma, published in Nature Medicine in 2001. Continuously funded by the National Eye Institute as a principal investigator since 1995, he is an inventor of optical coherence tomography, used world-wide for ocular diagnostics. Dr. Schuman has published more than 450 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles.Joel Schuman, along with Eric Swanson, James Fujimoto, Carmen Puliafito, Charles Lin and David Huang, invented the optical coherence tomography technology. This technology, allows a quick and noninvasive 3D map of the eye, in particular the retina. It is one of the tools available for early detection of eye diseases such as glaucoma, along with macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. More than 60,000 of these machines are used daily throughout the world.