Ronald E. Smith, MD

Dr. Smith was has served on the Academy's Board since 1988: as secretary for Continuing Education from 1988 to 1992; as president in 1994 and Chair of the Foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Academy's public service foundation, from 2001 to 2006. Dr. Smith has also served as member of several Academy committees such as the Foundation Board of Directors; the Honors and Awards Committee; the Glaucoma 2001 National Scientific Advisory Board; the Media Information Committee; the Committee on Organization Design. Other Academy roles include: editor-in-chief of Focal Points; chair of the BCSC, Section III; chair of the Lifelong Education for the Ophthalmologist Planning Committee; chair of the Master Plan for Education Committee; and national project director of the Elimination of Preventable Blindness from Diabetes by the Year 2000 project.

Dr. Smith graduated from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1967. After completing residency at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, he completed a fellowship in uveitis, cornea and external disease at Francis I. Proctor Foundation for Research in Ophthalmology, University of California Medical Center at San Francisco. He returned to Wilmer as chief resident, followed by two years in the U.S. Public Health Service as an ophthalmologist for the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage, Ala.

He joined the department of ophthalmology at the University of Southern California/Doheny Eye Institute in 1975 where he maintains a longstanding clinical and research interest in external disease, cornea and uveitis. He is currently Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the USC Keck School of Medicine, Director of the Doheny Cornea Service and Medical Director of the Doheny Eye and Tissue Bank.