Past Pisart Award Recipients

2024

John-Ross (JR) Rizzo, MD, MSc, FACRM, Health System Director of Disability Inclusion and Vice Chair of Innovation & Equity at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY. Dr. Rizzo, has done pioneering work harnessing the power of technology to break down barriers for people with visual impairments. Dr. Rizzo is the Health System Director of Disability Inclusion and Vice Chair of Innovation & Equity at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He also holds appointments in the departments of neurology, ophthalmology, mechanical and aerospace engineering, and biomedical engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. He heads the Visumotor Integration Laboratory, exploring motor control with a special emphasis on visual guidance and biomechanics in blindness, and the Rehabilitation Engineering Alliance and Center Transforming Low Vision Laboratory (REACTIV), exploring bio-inspired, multi-sensory assistive technologies with a special emphasis on advanced wearables. He is an advisor to multiple startups and early ventures focused broadly on technological disruption for those with visual impairments of all kinds and holds a series of board and advisory roles at leading NPOs, inclusive of the MTA, National Academies, Lighthouse Guild, FFB, CRF, CityAccess, and more. Dr. Rizzo capitalizes on his lived experience with vision loss in all aspects of his work.

2023

Saqib Shaikh, Engineering Manager, Microsoft

2022

Javier Pita Lozano, CEO, NaviLens 

2020

Philip D. Kiser, PharmD, PhD, University of California, Irvine, Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility

2019

Tiffany Schmidt, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology, Northwestern University

2018

Joshua D. Stein, MD, MS, Associate Professor, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the W.K. Kellogg Eye Center, University of Michigan

2017

Yoshikazu Imanishi, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

2016

Pradeep Ramulu, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University

2015

Gabriel Kreiman, PhD, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Boston Children’s Hospital, F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Harvard Medical School

2014

Pawan Sinha, PhD, Professor of Vision and Computational Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2013

Clare Gilbert, MD, Professor of International Eye Health, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), University of London

2012

Gregory Hageman, PhD, Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Utah, Director of the Center for Translational Medicine at the John A. Moran Eye Center

1981 – 2011

Lloyd M. Aiello, MD

Daniel M. Albert, MD

Norman Ashton, CBE, FRS

Ian L. Bailey, OD, MS, FAAO

Eliot L. Berson, MD

David G. Cogan, MD

Jay M. Enoch, PhD

Eleanor E. Faye, MD

Stuart L. Fine, MD

Charles D. Kelman, MD

Carl Kupfer, MD

Alan M. Laties, MD

Gordon E. Legge, PhD

Robert Machemer, MD

Robert W. Massof, PhD

Edward Maumenee, MD

Arnall Patz, MD

Eli Peli, MSc, OD

Gullapalli N. Rao, MD

Floyd Ratliff, PhD

Alfredo Arrigo Sadun, MD, PhD

Charles L. Schepens, MD

Paul A. Sieving, MD

Louise L. Sloan, PhD

Davida Y. Teller, PhD

Govindappa Venkataswamy, MD

Mildred Weisenfeld

John S. Werner, PhD

Sir John Wilson, CBE

Lawrence A. Yannuzzi, MD

Lorenz E. Zimmerman, MD