Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research
Awards are important; they are public statements of our aspirations. Helen Keller Laureates provide invaluable examples of roads well traveled, inspiring promising new researchers to choose their own paths more wisely.
The Foundation considers the Helen Keller Prize Program to be among its most important efforts to end blindness.
The Foundation Board believes that vision research will advance in direct proportion to the public’s awareness and understanding of research on eye disease and injury. With the establishment of the Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research in May 1994, the Foundation dramatically began its efforts to promote public recognition of vision research.
The Helen Keller Prize has been embraced by the vision research community, a veritable army of 20,000 scientists and clinicians worldwide who labor to preserve the precious gift of sight for present and future generations. The Foundation believes that the Helen Keller Prize will ultimately become a powerful public symbol of their efforts.
Helen Keller Laureates are selected by an international panel of biomedical researchers and physicians. The Prize ceremony occurs at the annual convention of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), an international conclave that attracts more than 13,000 scientists and physicians from over 80 countries.
Keller Johnson-Thompson, great-grand niece of Helen Keller, awards the Prize to the Laureate.
In 2015, BrightFocus Foundation, which advances outstanding research and public information on vision disease, joined the Helen Keller Foundation as a partner in presenting the Prize.
About Our
Laureates
About the
Selection Committee
2028 Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research