Excellence in Ophthalmology and Vision Research 2025 award winners and tutors (L-R) Khusrav Bhajiwalla, Dr Sarah Hull (summer student awards presenter), Chloe Ramsamy,

Following nibbles and drinks, the 2025 Excellence in Ophthalmology and Vision Research awards at the University of Auckland were introduced by Professor Charles McGhee, the long-standing Maurice Paykel Chair of Ophthalmology and founding director of the New Zealand National Eye Centre. Despite the ups and downs of recent years, it’s always important to take time to celebrate our achievements, said Prof McGhee. “These awards celebrate our success and the future, and the basis for our success usually starts with students.”

In his address, Prof McGhee acknowledged 2023–2024 had been another difficult year in many respects, not least because of cutbacks, continuing and worsening patient backlogs, ongoing global political woes and changes to RANZCO’s training process, which was putting off clinical PhD candidates. That said, the ophthalmology department continues to grow with the kind support of its sponsors, he said, resulting in new professorships, senior faculty members and research fellows. In 2024, the department secured more than $5 million in research funds, giving a total of more than $60 million over the past 20 years, he said.

Hutokshi Chinoy and her Summer Student Award-winning
son, medical student Khusrav Bhajiwalla, with Prof Helen
Danesh-Meyer

Introduced by Professor Jennifer Craig, head of the Ocular Surface Laboratory in the Department of Ophthalmology, the night’s first winner was Dr Isaac Samuels who was awarded the William MacKenzie Medal for excellence in eye research for his work to reduce health disparities for Māori in eye health. Dr Samuels’ work included developing an Indigenous eye-health framework for Aotearoa from a kaupapa Māori perspective. This was then tested in a clinical situation with help from former and current summer student award winner Jordan Cooper. All up, Dr Samuels’ work resulted in four publications, two as first author, said Prof Craig, who supervised his research. “He really has a fantastic career ahead of him, we’re very proud of him and we’re really looking forward to see what he’s going to achieve.”

Calvin Ring Award winner Khushee Jain and
Summer Student Award winner Kameron Li

In a similar vein, Esmeralda Lo Tam was this year’s PhD research presenter, discussing her work to understand access barriers and present solutions for better vision screening and eye health in New Zealand’s Pacific Peoples communities. This situation isn’t helped by the complete lack of an eye health survey in Aotearoa, she noted.

Willlam MacKenzie Medal winner Dr Isaac Samuels (centre) with his family (L-R) Kym Samuels, Isabella Samuels, Paul Samuels and Kevin Denholm

The Calvin Ring Undergraduate Prize, designed to encourage one of the best all-round medical students to consider ophthalmology, was awarded to Khushee Jain by Dr Peter Ring. Dr Ring discussed the origin of the award and his father’s contributions to ophthalmology in New Zealand, which included his work to introduce intraocular lenses, despite the sometimes-vehement opposition from some of his peers at the time.

Dr Sarah Hull with Summer Student awardee Chetan Pondugula

Consultant ophthalmologist and senior ophthalmology lecturer Dr Sarah Hull introduced and presented prizes to the award-winning summer students, who span medical and BOptom students, as well as other departments within the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences. This year there were 12 winners:

• Khusrav Bhajiwalla: the effects of castor oil on the lipid layer of the tear film
• Jordan Cooper: tackling dry eye in space and beyond
• Catherine Franicevic: clinical and genetic characteristics of aniridia-associated dysgenesis in Aotearoa
• Yuting Guo: acute and chronic inflammation in uveitis
• Kabir Khanna: the relationship between diabetic nephropathy and diabetic macular oedema in patients with type 2 diabetes
• Binu Kularathne: the gut-eye axis: unravelling the therapeutic potential
• Kameron Li: Creating a clinically useful, normative database of optic nerve imaging in children
• Lauren McPhee: light-mediated killing of fungal biofilm
• Nusha Mirza: Mimicking neovascularisation using a 3D human organotypic choroidal sprout model
• Daniel Oh: predicting neurodegeneration in eye disease as a model of brain injury and brain age
• Chetan Pondugula: exploring the effect of Aß on retinal endothelial cells
• Chloe Ramsamy: tackling dry eye in space and beyond.