Dr. Robert Massof, 2009 Pisart Award Recipient
Dr. Robert W. Massof has been selected by the Pisart jury as the winner of the 2009 Pisart Vision Award. Dr. Massof is Professor of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience, Lions Vision Research and Rehabilitation Center Wilmer Eye Institute, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and has joint appointments in Computer Science at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering and at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Baltimore, MD. The Pisart award is open to citizens of any country and candidates include any individual who has made a noteworthy contribution to preventing and treating vision impairment.
This award is extended to Dr. Massof as a testimony to his contributions to change the way the world views, studies and treats vision impairment. He has made a series of important contributions including studies into Retinitis Pigmentosa, development of the Low Vision Enhancement System, developing systems models for low vision rehabilitation, facilitating the measuring of low vision outcomes and championing policy reform for low vision rehabilitation.
Highlights of his career include his work to mathematically model the time course of visual field loss in RP and dispel the notion that RP progression cannot be predicted. This work increased our understanding of RP and its impact on vision, and gained him recognition as a forerunner in the field of retinal degeneration research and mentor for others training in the field. With the support of former Pisart award recipient, Dr. Arnall Patz, Dr. Massof collaborated with NASA to design a portable, battery powered head-mounted closed-circuit video system name the Low Vision Enhancement System (LVES).
Dr. Massof has authored more than 160 published scientific papers and book chapters, is the editor of Issue in Low Vision Rehabilitation: Service Delivery, Policy and Funding and the low vision rehabilitation section of Albert and Jacobiek’s Principles and Practice of Ophthalmology. He holds five patents and three software copyrights on instruments that he has developed. He has given more than 120 lectures, five named lectures and several visiting professorships.