Health Technologies
Scientific Advisors
William H. Swanson (“Bill”) is a Professor Emeritus at Indiana University who has performed vision research for four decades, working with both ophthalmologists and optometrists. He has worked on spatial and temporal vision, color vision deficiencies, infant visual development, photoreceptor degenerations, and glaucoma. He has served as a consultant for the National Eye Institute, the Food & Drug Administration, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Fight for Sight, and for several businesses. He has been a member of the Optical Society of America Technical Committee on Noninvasive Assessment of the Visual System and the editorial board for Optometry and Vision Science. He has served as a reviewer for a wide range of journals in vision science. He has served as a member of the Consensus Program Committee of the World Glaucoma Association Global Consensus on Glaucoma Progression and of the Steering Committee for the Glaucoma Progression Scholars. He is a founding member of the Optometric Glaucoma Society, a Senior Emeritus Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and a Silver Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.
For the last 2 decades Bill has focused on applying psychophysical models and methods to perimetry. He has been awarded funding from NIH continuously since 1991 for clinically-oriented research on visual function in patients with eye diseases, with an emphasis on glaucoma. This has included the goal of improving structure-function relations and laying the foundations for 21st-century perimetry.
Emmanouil Tsamis, called Manos by friends and colleagues, is an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University, NY. His research focuses on the development and improvement of techniques to better detect and monitor glaucoma. His primary research interest lies on the technologies of optical coherence tomography (OCT) and perimetry (visual fields). He works closely with Prof Donald C Hood, Dr Gustavo De Moraes, as well as the rest of the glaucoma team (Dr Liebmann, Dr Cioffi) at Columbia University Medical Center.
He has previously graduated as an optician-optometrist from the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, Greece. He worked at an optician/optometrist practice for a year, before joining Prof David Henson in Manchester, England, where he completed his Masters (Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences) and PhD (Medicine-Optometry) degrees. He joined Prof Don Hood’s Lab in 2018 and under his mentorship Manos established himself as one of the research experts in structure and function relationships in glaucoma. In 2021, he was awarded the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award by the NIH/NEI for his project ‘Development, validation and assessment of an automated, topographic structure-function approach to the detection of glaucoma and its progression’.
Business Advisors
Catherine Grealy Cohen launched her own firm, Strategies for Innovative Policy Solutions on April 1 after stepping down from her longstanding position of vice president for governmental affairs for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. With more than twenty-five years in the position and more than 40 years in governmental relations, Ms. Cohen has played significant roles in affecting physician payments under Medicare, ensuring appropriate eye care for veterans, as well as the successful passage of the first blindness prevention benefit under Medicare for detection of glaucoma.
With a passion for disruptive technology, Catherine is interested in continuing work related to Medicare coverage and payment in the AI space, remote therapeutic monitoring, and genomics.
Prior to her position with the Academy, Ms. Cohen served as director of federal affairs at Eastman Kodak Company, where she helped establish an employee political action committee (PAC) for the 100-year-old company and coordinated the grassroots program. She initially served as director of health affairs, coordinating development of Kodak’s health care reform position for use at both the state and federal level. She also reported to the president of Kodak’s medical device company and acted as their lobbyist, helping to repeal a law and change regulations that disadvantaged the company. Before her tenure at Kodak, Ms. Cohen was director of the American Society of Clinical Pathologist’s Washington office where she supervised the organization’s federal and state lobbying efforts and helped pass the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act and Stark law. She started her lobbying career with the Academy in 1979 after four years on Capitol Hill.
Ms. Cohen earned a master’s degree in health services administration from George Washington University and is widely published on Medicare reimbursement, legislative and regulatory issues.