Drs. Aaron and Cecilia Lee receive one of ophthalmology’s highest honors for advancing big data, AI, and collaborative discovery.
Aaron Y. Lee, MD, MSCI, Arthur W. Stickle Distinguished Professor and Chairman of the WashU Medicine John F. Hardesty, MD Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, and Cecilia Lee, MD,MS Jane Hardesty Poole Endowed Professor, Ophthalmology and Visual Science, have been awarded the ARVO Cogan Award in recognition of their impactful contributions to vision science and ophthalmic research. This prestigious award, presented by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), highlights exceptional work that propels the field forward through innovative methods and collaborative leadership.
In her remarks about the award, Cecilia Lee, MD, MS emphasized the collective nature of the achievement:
“Receiving the ARVO Cogan Award is one of the greatest honors of our careers. We feel incredibly fortunate to have been supported by remarkable mentors, trainees, and collaborators. We are truly excited to be part of a broader movement in our field — integrating big data, AI, and oculomics to accelerate discovery through open and equitable data sharing and collaboration.”
Their work harnesses large-scale data, machine learning, and advanced analytics to elucidate complex patterns in eye disease and vision loss, while also leveraging the eye as a non-invasive window into systemic health—a field known as oculomics. Their research emphasizes equitable access to data and analytic tools, ensuring that discoveries benefit diverse populations and accelerate real-world translational impact.
Related Research and Resources
To learn more about the methods and collaborations that help define this work, see the following resources:
- AI ReadI – A scalable framework for multimodal, AI-ready data collection and transdisciplinary team science to study salutogenesis in type 2 diabetes
- FAIRHub – Infrastructure for making scientific data AI-ready and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable)
- EyeACT Study – Retinal biomarkers of aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia
- Comp Ophthalmology Hub – Computational approaches to ophthalmic science and oculomics
Recent Publications Relevant to This Work
The Lee’s approach builds on a foundation of research integrating biology, informatics, and clinical insights:
- Motivation and conceptual foundation of AI-READI
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-024-01165-x - Development of a flagship multimodal dataset for studying salutogenesis
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11800295/ - Aging of the eye and brain: eye health interventions and dementia risk
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2786583 - Setting the standard for clinical AI: real-world, head-to-head validation
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33402366/ - Biomarker discovery linking eye disease and Alzheimer’s disease
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6333518/
Together, these resources reflect the Lees commitment to data sharing, interdisciplinary collaboration, and rigorous computational science.
The ARVO Cogan Award is one of the most respected honors in vision research, recognizing scientists whose work has had a profound impact on the field. By advancing methodologies that leverage artificial intelligence, large datasets, and computational tools, Lee and Lee are helping to usher in a new era of ophthalmic discovery that is faster, more inclusive, and more predictive than ever before.
Their recognition underscores WashU Medicine Ophthalmology’s leadership in combining clinical excellence, innovative research, and collaborative science to address some of the most challenging questions in vision care.
About WashU Medicine
WashU Medicine is a global leader in academic medicine, including biomedical research, patient care and educational programs with 2,900 faculty. Its National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding portfolio is the second largest among U.S. medical schools and has grown 56% in the last seven years. Together with institutional investment, WashU Medicine commits well over $1 billion annually to basic and clinical research innovation and training. Its faculty practice is consistently within the top five in the country, with more than 1,900 faculty physicians practicing at 130 locations and who are also the medical staffs of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals of BJC HealthCare. WashU Medicine has a storied history in MD/PhD training, recently dedicated $100 million to scholarships and curriculum renewal for its medical students, and is home to top-notch training programs in every medical subspecialty as well as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and audiology and communications sciences.