Up Close and Personal with 2020 Award Winners

Frank L. Brodie, MD, MBA

I am very grateful and honored to join the Michels Fellowship Foundation family. I received my medical degree at Penn and did a concurrent MBA at The Wharton School. After Ophthalmology residency at UCSF, I completed a one-year Ophthalmic Innovation fellowship at Stanford. I am currently a Vitreoretinal fellow at Duke with a keen interest in translational research and innovation.

I enjoy developing new solutions for the problems ophthalmologists and our patients face, both in the clinic and the OR. Through this work I have had the opportunity to collaborate with terrific scientists and engineers from Caltech, Stanford and Duke. After fellowship, I am looking forward to academic career with ongoing multi-disciplinary collaborations and developing new technologies to improve the care of our patients.

I am tremendously grateful for all the generous and insightful mentorship I have received throughout my medical and ophthalmic education.

Elizabeth J. Rossin, MD, PhD

I am honored and humbled to be part of the Michels Foundation Fellowship family. After completing an MD and PhD at Harvard Medical School, I completed my residency and chief year at Massachusetts Eye and Ear where I am currently a vitreoretinal surgery fellow.

My research involves the application of network theory to biological systems in order to better model their complexity. During my doctoral work, we studied how genetics of common complex traits - such as autoimmune disease - point to genes that code for a network of interacting proteins. Currently, we have applied these concepts to the 3D folded structure of individual viral proteins to identify peptides that are crucial to protein function and serve as important targets in vaccine design. I plan to continue to explore these concepts to help better understand infectious and hereditary disease in ophthalmology.

In my spare time, my husband and I enjoy taking our son on outdoor adventures in the northeast.

Matthew R. Starr, MD

I still am very honored to have received the Michels Foundation Fellowship Award during and follow in the footsteps of the tremendous leaders in the field of retina. It is crazy it has already been 4 years. Right after finishing fellowship at Wills Eye, I joined on as staff at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota where I completed my residency. I am now an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology here at Mayo as well as the Assistant Residency Program Director.

Currently I am interested in pursuing clinically based research projects and am working on surgical outcomes following primary rhegmatogenous retinal detachment surgery as well as refining refractive outcomes following secondary intraocular lens surgery. Additionally, I have a strong interest in patient safety and quality improvement and am focusing my work on lean process models for improved patient outcomes.

When I do get some spare time, I enjoy spending it with my wife and two children (who are already 4 and 7 years old), as well as trying new foods, craft beer, traveling, and Oklahoma football.