Get to know us

Kaweh Mansouri, MD, MPH

My first contact with the World Glaucoma Association (WGA) was through a print copy of the International Glaucoma Review (IGR), lying on a senior colleague’s desk in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was sometime in early 2001 and I was still a medical student starting to work on my dissertation in glaucoma. Fascinated by the type of constructive critique and debate that took place on its well-thumbed pages, some of them with annotations and sketches by previous readers, the WGA started to represent global glaucoma for me from those early ages on. It is a testimony to the hard work of its chief editor Prof. Robert Weinreb and publisher Simon Bakker that this journal has been going from strong to stronger throughout these past two decades despite the many challenges and changes happening in our world.

Shortly after that discovery, in 2003, now a pre-residency research fellow, I had the privilege to attend and present at the 1st World Glaucoma Congress (WGC), taking place in my hometown Vienna. I have not missed a single WGC since. For many of us in glaucoma, of the many high-quality and well-organized international meetings in our field, none comes close to ‘our’ WGC in terms of scientific quality, diversity of subjects and speakers, constructive debate, and networking opportunities. For this, we are indebted to a changing cast of distinguished colleagues who have dedicated their time to WGA through its Executive Committee, Program Planning Committee, to our Executive Office at MCI, and our Industry partners.

The WGA has long grown beyond the IGR and WGC. Its many committees (Education, World Glaucoma Week, Communication and Technology, Consensus Series ‒ just to name a few), all staffed by colleagues from all corners of the globe who volunteer their time, address so many important aspects of glaucoma.

Having done my residency in Lausanne and Geneva, Switzerland, followed by a glaucoma fellowship at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), I felt incredibly honored when I was invited to join the WGA Associate Advisory Board in 2012. There, I met a like-minded group of young colleagues, many of whom have become good friends in the meantime, who were passionate about global glaucoma. I had the opportunity to serve in different committees over the ensuing years, which allowed me to better understand the organization that was continuously growing. My election to Associate EVP in 2017 was a tremendous sign of confidence by the Board of Governors. Over the last years, I have been privileged to serve the organization under the able stewardship of Prof. Shan Lin, EVP, as we overcame the once-ina- century challenge of COVID-19. Working with Shan, both as a teacher in leadership and a friend, was akin to a getting a (free!) MBA in how to run a non-for-profit professional organization with the highest ethical standards.

TThroughout these years, I have not strived to find a life-work-balance, as some advocate, but have lived a very happy imbalance between my work as a glaucoma specialist at Swiss Visio, Montchoisi Clinic, Lausanne; Adjoint Professor at the University of Colorado, Denver and the regular weekend of skiing in the Swiss Alps or swimming in the Mediterranean.

As I start my term as EVP, I am grateful to find the Organization in such strong position and look forward to working with a dedicated, enthusiastic, and experienced group of people who make up the WGA and all of you, glaucoma healthcare professionals, to improve glaucoma diagnosis and care around the world!