Faculty named to endowed positions thanks to generous gifts

Department of Ophthalmology faculty members Dr. Jennifer Chao and Dr. Ruikang (Ricky) Wang have recently been named to endowed appointments at the University of Washington.

“Congratulations to Dr. Chao and Dr. Wang! An appointment to an endowed professorship and endowed chair is one of our highest honors,” said Dr. Russell N. Van Gelder, MD, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology. “We are grateful to these donors for their generous gifts to support continued excellence in patient care and research.” 

Dr. Chao, MD, Ph.D., Vice Chair for Research, was recently appointed to the Gordon and Joan Bergy Endowed Professorship in Ophthalmology. Dr. Chao has been on the faculty at UW since 2009.

A retinal disease specialist, Dr. Chao has an active laboratory that studies retinal degenerative disorders.  The Chao Lab is investigating potential applications of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for treating eye diseases and identifying new drug therapies for eye diseases. Inherited retinal degeneration is a significant cause of blindness. The Chao laboratory is working to create models of retinal degenerative diseases that can be used to discover potentially therapeutic drugs. The laboratory takes blood samples from volunteers to create patient-specific stem cells and grow them into retinal cells to study.

In support of the Department of Ophthalmology, in 2012, Joan Bergy provided funding for the Joan and Gordon Bergy Visiting Professorship series, which brings three outstanding vision scientists to visit and deliver scientific lectures each year. Several years ago, Joan moved to the Aljoya community on Mercer Island.  She and Gordon had a beloved home in Hansville, Washington.  After she made the difficult decision to sell the house, she decided to use the proceeds to fund an endowed professorship.  Dr. Chao is Joan’s retina specialist at the Karalis Johnson Retina Center at South Lake Union.

“I am inspired by the visionary leadership of Dr. Van Gelder, who has led the UW Medicine Eye Institute and the Retina Center, and Dr. Jennifer Chao, whose ongoing research is the use of stem cells to restore patient vision,” Joan said. “What we do for ourselves dies with us, but what we give to others lives on,” she says. “And what could be more important than the gift of vision?”

A UW faculty member since 2011, Dr. Ruikang (Ricky) Wang, Ph.D., was recently appointed to the George and Martina Kren Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology Research. Wang is a professor with appointments in the Departments of Bioengineering and Ophthalmology at the UW and directs the Biophotonics and Imaging Laboratory. The Wang lab is dedicated to developing biomedical imaging techniques for early diagnosis, treatment, and management of human diseases, especially retinal diseases.

His efforts have contributed to retinal findings in infants and adults with unprecedented precision, speed, and imaging resolution. Dr. Wang is widely credited with being the inventor of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA), a technique in which blood flow can be measured in all blood vessels in the eye non-invasively. This technique is now a standard testing modality in ophthalmology offices worldwide. 

George Kren was born in Prague, Czech Republic, and emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1970s. In 1976 he co-founded Tencor Instruments, a company that later merged into KLA-Tencor. He was also instrumental in founding the Surfscan Division and acquiring the companies Censor in Lichtenstein and NanoPro in Germany. For many years he had a leading role in SEMI Standards, where he received the SEMI Lifetime Award in 2004. George is now retired and lives with his wife, Martina, in Monterey, California.  George serves on the UW Medicine Eye Institute Community Action Board, and he and Martina are also helping to support an endowed professorship in advanced ocular imaging within the Department of Ophthalmology.