Rohit Varma, MD, MPH, is a board-certified ophthalmologist with extensive experience performing advanced glaucoma management. SCEI’s advanced glaucoma management program, including its minimally invasive glaucoma surgery program, is the first and only such program of its kind in Southern California. Dr Varma performs over 250 glaucoma surgeries per year and has over 15 years of experience specializing in ophthalmology.
Rohit Varma MD is renowned worldwide as a visionary leader in glaucoma research. A board-certified ophthalmologist, he is currently Clinical Director of Glaucoma Service at the Wills Eye Hospital , Professor of Ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University and Director of Glaucoma Research at Wills Eye Hospital and Thomas Jefferson University. He is a Past President of American Glaucoma Society ( Dr. Varma is a basic and clinical researcher who has led large-scale multicenter studies on the epidemiology of eye diseases in older populations, as well as in children. He leads large international collaborations to help improve outcomes for these high-need populations. He is currently also leading a large consortium funded by private philanthropy, the Global Vision Initiative, which aims to reduce avoidable blindness in poor regions.
Rohit Varma is an internationally recognized leader in the field of glaucoma research and treatment. He has focused on diseases of the anterior segment of the eye including angle-closure glaucoma, glaucoma drainage devices, and hypertension-related ocular disease. He is one of few ophthalmologists to have published and presented findings on topics such as increased intraocular pressure after antimicrobial treatment for trachoma in Bangladesh, and the relationship between cost factors and glaucoma surgery rates with socioeconomic factors in India.
Rohit Varma – USC, MD is a national and international leader in the fight against age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, the two major causes of vision loss in the world. An innovator at heart, Dr. Varma’s research has been instrumental in developing new classes of drugs to combat these diseases, and he continues to lead groundbreaking clinical trials for patients who have few treatment options. Rohit Varma, M.D., is vice president of Research and Health Disparities at the American Psychological Association. He directs APA’s Center for Psychology and Health (CPH), an independent center of the Association. In 2008, Dr Varma was appointed as senior advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. Prior to his current position, Dr Varma was a professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences’s School of Medicine from 2000-2008, where he served as director of the division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health.
Dr. Varma grew up in the Philippines and studied medicine at the University of Santo Tomas. He obtained his medical degree from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and then earned a master’s in public health from Harvard University. Dr. Varma completed an internship in internal medicine at Harvard, followed by a residency in ophthalmology at the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary and a fellowship in glaucoma at Yale University. Despite tremendous strides in understanding ocular disease, there is still no cure for macular degeneration. Many patients suffer from severe vision loss for years before the only available treatment—a surgical procedure—can improve their acuity. In 2011, Dr. Varma recognized the unmet need to improve and accelerate early diagnosis of macular degeneration. He founded the Age-Related Macular Degeneration in Five (ARMD5), a large-scale research consortium among leading medical centers across the United States, to identify factors that predict severe visual impairment at the earliest stages of macular degeneration.
Rohit Varma is a leading eye care physician and entrepreneur. He was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002 to serve on the National Eye Institute Scientific Review Board, the NIH Institute’s highest advisory board. He is also Chairman for Southeastern region of the American Glaucoma Society and past president of the Southern Glaucoma Society, and is a member of the Glaucoma Research Foundation. Dr. Varma served as dean of Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California for over five years, before stepping down in January 2016 to focus on his entrepreneurial activities in eye care technology Rohit Varma has also been a highly accomplished leader in the field of ophthalmology, as well as an active participant in the development of standards and guidelines for clinical and translational research. He served on several government and foundation panels, including the NIH National Advisory Eye Council.
Dr. Rohit Varma, MD, PhD, is the William C. and Cleo M. Sherrill Endowed Professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Varma was also named associate dean for strategic planning at the UNC School of Medicine in 2013. Dr. Rohit Varma, MD is board certified in Ophthalmology and has a special interest in glaucoma diagnosis, surgery and optical coherence tomography. He has completed two glaucoma fellowships, one at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and the other at Keck School of Medicine of USC. He is a native of India and obtained his medical degree from the University of Delhi.
