Joan Miller, MD, receives Harvard leadership award

Boston

-Joan W. Miller, MD, has received the 2010 Joseph B. Martin Dean's Leadership Award for the Advancement of Women Faculty at Harvard Medical School (HMS).

The award recognizes faculty members committed to the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women at HMS or the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Dr. Miller is the sixteenth recipient of this award, which was initiated in 1998 by Dr. Martin, a former HMS dean, and renamed in his honor in 2007.

"Dr. Miller has shown tremendous leadership in helping advance the careers of women faculty and is truly a role model for our senior faculty in this regard," said Jeffrey Flier, HMS dean.

Dr. Miller, a member of the

Ophthalmology Times

editorial advisory board, is the Henry Willard Williams Professor of Ophthalmology at HMS and chairwoman of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) and Massachusetts General Hospital. The first female clinician-scientist to become a professor of ophthalmology at HMS, in 2003 she also became the first woman to lead the department. During her tenure, she has contributed to the recruitment of 17 women faculty members to MEEI and has greatly increased the number of female residents there, according to officials. Also, she has appointed women to leadership positions in patient care, teaching, research, and administration. She also restructured the institutional maternity leave policy to reduce the salary impact on those taking advantage of it.

An expert in the field of macular degeneration, Dr. Miller has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, 45 book chapters and review articles, is co-editor of

Albert and Jakobiec's Principles and Practice of Ophthalmology

, and is a named inventor on six U.S. patents.

She has received numerous awards, including the Rosenthal Award and J. Donald Gass Medal of the Macula Society, the Retina Research Award from the Club Jules Gonin, the Alcon Research Institute Award, the ARVO/Pfizer Ophthalmics Translational Research Award, and the Founder's Award from the American Society of Retina Specialists. Dr. Miller is a founding member of Women in Retina and a member of the advisory board of the Women's Eye Health Task Force.