Dimitri Azar MD, MBA

Dr. Azar is dean of the College of Medicine and professor of ophthalmology, bioengineering and pharmacology at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the United States, where he formerly was head of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. He is a member of the American Ophthalmological Society, former president of the Chicago Ophthalmological Society, and president-elect of the Chicago Medical Society. Additionally, he is on the board of the Tear Film and Ocular Surface Society, the board of Verb Surgical, and the scientific advisory board of Verily.

Dr. Azar began his career at the American University of Beirut Medical Center in Lebanon, and completed his fellowship and residency training at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard Medical School in the US. His research on matrix metalloproteinases in corneal wound healing and angiogenesis has been funded by the US National Institutes of Health since 1993. Dr. Azar practiced at the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Medicine in the US, and then returned to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary as director of cornea and external disease. He became professor of ophthalmology with tenure at Harvard Medical School in 2003. Dr. Azar holds an Executive Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in the US.