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Speakers
Expo
Welcoming
COECSA SPEAKERS 2025 2025
We are pleased to introduce the faculty of speakers for the forthcoming 12th Congress of the COECSA.

Dr. Kombo
Dr. Kombo received her M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine, where she also completed her ophthalmology residency. She completed fellowship training in Uveitis and Ocular Immunology at The Massachusetts Eye Research and Surgery Institution (MERSI) under the mentorship of Dr. C. Stephen Foster where she was the Chief Clinical Fellow. Dr. Kombo has served on the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual
Sciences since 2014. She is Director of the Uveitis Service and Director of Medical Student Education in Ophthalmology. She also serves as the Chief of Ophthalmology at the West Haven Veterans Hospital, and is the Associate Director of Global Health for Ophthalmology.

J.Peter Campbell MD, MPH
As a public-health trained vitreoretinal surgeon, I have been building a career at the intersection of clinical medicine and public health, focused on utilizing quantitative imaging techniques to improve the clinical outcomes of pediatric patients with retinal disease at both the individual and population level. Since joining the faculty at the Oregon Health & Science University 4 years ago, I have been actively involved in two main research areas: imaging and the development of artificial intelligence (Al) for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) diagnosis, as part of the i-ROP research consortium headed by Michael Chiang, MD at OHSU, and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA), as part of the Center for Ophthalmic Optics & Lasers (COOL Lab) headed by David Huang, MD at OHSU.

Dr. Anand Vinegar
Dr. Anand Vinekar is currently Professor & Head of Department of the Pediatric Retina Service at Narayana Nethralaya Eye Institute, Bangalore, India. and the Founder and Program Director of KIDROP. KIDROP is India’s first Tele-ROP program to screen for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in rural areas and is currently the largest ROP program in the world having completed over 280,000 (2023) screening sessions in over 145 neonatal centers.
KIDROP’s model of non-physician based screening through imaging, triaging and grading has been hailed as the most scalable model of ROP screening particularly in middle and low income settings where there are few specialists.
The program has won several national & international awards and has been cited by UNDP, Niti Ayog, Harvard Business Review, IIM A &
B and validated on the CDC Guidelines and has been modelled by several states in India as well as some nations around the world.

Prof. John H. Kempen
Prof. John H. Kempen, an ocular inflammation and clinical epidemiol-
ogy expert, serves as Director of Epidemiology for Ophthalmology,
Director of Global Surgery and Health-Ophthalmology and Senior
Scholar, Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Schepens Eye Research Institute
as well as Professor of Ophthalmology (PT), and Affiliate, Department
of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. He
also is Adjunct Professor of Ophthalmology at MyungSung Medical
College and Addis Ababa University. He is co-founder and President
of Sight for Souls, an international eye care development organiza-
tion. Dr. Kempen received the American Academy of Ophthalmology
Humanitarian Award (2020) for his development, clinical, teaching
and research work in Ethiopia, where he primarily has lived with his
family since 2015, being seconded much of each year to develop
self-sustaining eye care (not taking profits) and uveitis training
programs while carrying on his global research program. His
research focuses primarily on ocular inflammatory diseases and
infections, including trachoma, and the global burden of eye diseases,
He served as Executive Editor for Uveitis for the American Journal of
Ophthalmology for six years and is Editor-in-Chief Emeritus for
Ophthalmic Epidemiology. He serves as International Director of
Education for the International Uveitis Study Group. Prof. Kempen
has approximately 350 publications which have been cited 38,436
times as of May 26, 2025.

Dr Aeesha Nusrat Jehan Malik
I am a Clinical Assistant Professor in Child Eye Health based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in
the International Centre of Eye Health. My work focusses on reducing avoidable childhood visual loss and inequity in low and middle income countries through strengthening healthcare systems and integrating eye care into child health programmes and policies, specifically on primary eye care and Retinopathy of Prematurity. I am currently working with WHO and UNICEF on creating evidence and policy for
including eye health into their child health policies. I have co-founded my own NGO, Eye Sha Foundation, registered in the UK which focuses on reducing childhood blindness in MICs. I continue to work part time as a Consultant Pediatric Ophthalmologist