Emily Chew, MD of National Eye Institute to receive 2026 Roger Johnson Award
Emily Chew, MD, the Director of the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications (DECA) and Distinguished Investigator at the National Eye Institute, the National Institutes of Health, has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Roger Johnson Award for Macular Degeneration research. She will present a lecture as part of the 52nd annual Resident Alumni Day on June 13 at the South Lake Union campus.
The late Dr. Roger H. Johnson endowed this award, which is given every other year through the UW Department of Ophthalmology. The award aims to stimulate clinical and basic science research on the pathogenesis or treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Dr. Chew is also the Chief of the Clinical Trials Branch in the division. Her research interests include phase I/II clinical trials and epidemiologic studies in retinovascular diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and other ocular diseases.
She has worked extensively in large multicenter trials led by staff from her division, including the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS), the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS), and the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2), which she chairs. Learn more about the AREDS study.
She works on other clinical trials in collaboration with other institutes within NIH such as the Actions to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) Trial and she chairs the ACCORD Eye Study. She directs the clinical portion of the international study, Macular Telangiectasia Project.
Dr. Chew is a past president of ARVO, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the Macula Society, and was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Dr. Chew received her medical degree and her ophthalmology training at the University of Toronto, Canada. She completed her fellowship in medical retina at the Wilmer Eye Institute, the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes and the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
About Roger H. Johnson
Roger Johnson graduated from the University of Wisconsin and trained at the Mayo Clinic. He set up his practice in downtown Seattle in 1945 and came to serve as a clinical professor on the University of Washington faculty; he was also a mentor and an eye researcher. Johnson established the eye clinic at Seattle Children’s and volunteered his time to serve as chief of service for more than 40 years.
Roger and his wife Angie were always interested in improving the health of eye patients. Nearly 40 years ago, they endowed the Roger Johnson Lectureship at Seattle Children’s, which brings top pediatric ophthalmologists to Seattle and has become one of the most prestigious visiting lectureships in the specialty. Later, in 2001, they endowed the Roger H. Johnson Award for Macular Degeneration. This prize is given to the scientist who has made the most significant contribution to the understanding or treatment of age-related macular degeneration. A remarkably generous gift from Angie Karalis Johnson led to the creation of the Roger and Angie Karalis Johnson Retina Center at UW Medicine South Lake Union in 2019.