Helen Keller Prize Selection Committee

Pictured from left to right:
Nick Delamere, Joe Hollyfield, King-Wai Yau,
Dean Bok, Al Sommer, Hugh Taylor,
Joel Schuman, Emily Chew, Bronwyn Bateman,
Terri Young, Lois Smith

To see a the list of Committee Members and their credentials please
Click Here

The Helen Keller Prize

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.
Therefore, 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.