Professor Hugh Taylor has been actively involved in ophthalmic research and teaching for over thirty years. In 2008, the Harold Mitchell Chair of Indigenous Eye Health was established for him in the Melbourne School of Population Health at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this, he was the Professor of Ophthalmology and Head of Department at the University of Melbourne and the founding Managing Director of the Centre for Eye Research Australia.
Professor Taylor received his medical degree from the University of Melbourne in 1971 and his Doctorate in 1978. He was on the Faculty of the Wilmer Institute at The Johns Hopkins University from 1977 to 1990 with joint appointments in Epidemiology and International Health.
Professor Taylor’s research interests include blindness prevention strategies, infectious causes of blindness and the relationship between medicine, public health and health economics. His current work particularly focuses on Aboriginal eye health and trachoma.
Professor Taylor has written sixteen books, including a recent publication on trachoma, and more than five hundred papers. He has served on many advisory committees and boards and consulted for the World Health Organization for thirty years.
He is Vice President of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, a Board Member of the International Council of Ophthalmology and Vision 2020 Australia and a member of the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis.
He has received the Paul Harris Award from Rotary International, the Melvin Jones Fellowship from Lions International, the International Blindness Prevention Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the Gold Medal from the International Organization against Trachoma. In 2001, he was made a Companion in the Order of Australia for his contributions to the prevention of river blindness, to academia through research and education related to the prevention of eye disease and to eye health in Indigenous communities.
He has delivered the Doyne Memorial Lecture (Oxford Ophthalmological Congress), the Jackson Lecture (American Academy of Ophthalmology), the Mildred Weisenfeld Lecture (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, USA), the Lang Lecture (Royal Society of Medicine, London), the Holmes and De Ocampo Lectures (Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology), the Council and Hollows Lectures (Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists) and the EA Baker Lecture (Canadian Ophthalmic Society).