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Recognition

Mildred Weisenfeld Award for Excellence in Ophthalmology

  • Application Opens: November 1, 2025
  • Application Closes: March 1, 2026
  • Eligible Members
    • Regular Member
    • Public
  • Research Specialty
    • Research
  • Career Stage
    • Mid Career
    • Late Career
  • Apply

Award Description

This award was established as a tribute to Mildred Weisenfeld's outstanding contributions to the field, including the founding of Fight for Sight in 1946. As a young woman with retinitis pigmentosa, she found support was directed to charitable assistance for those with vision disorders. She believed that by encouraging research and researchers, the result would have a greater impact. This award is presented to an individual in recognition of distinguished scholarly contributions to the clinical practice of ophthalmology. The recipient presents the Weisenfeld Award Lecture at the ARVO Annual Meeting and receives a plaque, complimentary registration, hotel, travel and per diem.

Award Namesake

Mildred Mosler Weisenfeld (1921 – 1997) of Brooklyn, NY, was the founder of the national not-for-profit foundation, the National Council to Combat Blindness, now known as Fight for Sight. This NY City-based organization provides initial funds to promising scientists early in their careers. For 50 years, Weisenfeld campaigned to increase funding for eye research, despite losing her own vision to retinitis pigmentosa and having no scientific training. 

Guidelines for Achievement Awards

  1. Neither nominees nor nominators are required to be ARVO members.
  2. Officers, members of the Board of Trustees and Awards Committee members are not eligible to be nominated for an award during their terms or to make or second award nominations.
  3. Nominators and supporters may only support one nomination for each award. You will need to confirm that your supporters are not supporting another nomination of the same award type. Please note that the Friedenwald Award and the Proctor Medal are two separate awards, but for the nomination process, they are one application. Therefore, nominators and supporters can only support one person for either the Friedenwald award or the Proctor Medal.
  4. Nominators can nominate an individual from their own institution. Only one additional support letter may be from the same institution as the nominee (two supporters must come from a different institution).
  5. Previous ARVO Award recipients may not be nominated for another ARVO award, with the exception of the Cogan Award.

Nomination process

Submission of nomination must include

One letter of nomination describing in detail the contributions of the nominee and her/his impact on vision science and/or eye care (no more than two pages).

Nominator is responsible for contacting three individuals who are closely familiar with the nominee's work and who support the award nomination and obtain a brief letter (no more than one page) for uploading into the awards site.

A brief summary statement (approximate 75 words)

  Nominee should create/update his or her Google scholar account prior to nomination.

The nominee's current curriculum vitae, including full bibliography, and no more than one page listing presented lectures. Abstracts should not be included.

All nominations are for one year. Occasionally, the Awards Committee may hold a nomination over for consideration the following year. Two years of award consideration must pass before an individual may be re-nominated for any award.

2026 Recipient

Nisha Acharya, MD, MS

Nisha Acharya, MD, MS, is the Elizabeth C. Proctor Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco, and director of the Uveitis and Ocular Inflammatory Disease Service at the F.I. Proctor Foundation. She is the associate director of the Proctor Foundation and vice chair for Faculty Development and Mentorship in the Department of Ophthalmology. Acharya is a clinician-scientist who is an international leader in ocular inflammatory diseases. For 20 years she has led an NIH-funded research program conducting global clinical trials and outcomes research.

Submit an Application

Learn more about how to submit your application to the
Mildred Weisenfeld Award for Excellence in Ophthalmology.
The deadline is March 1, 2026.

Apply