ARVO Foundation announces winner of
2024 Ludwig von Sallmann Clinician-Scientist Award
Awardee recognized for research on ophthalmology and biomedical informatics

The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Foundation announced today that Sally L. Baxter, MD, MSc, is the 2024 recipient of the Ludwig von Sallmann Clinician-Scientist Award.

Currently the chief of Ophthalmology Informatics and Data Science at the University of California San Diego, Baxter has expertise in artificial intelligence, biomedical and clinical informatics, big-data analytics, and data standards. Her research focus falls into two broad categories, the first being developing standards to represent ophthalmology data in a consistent, uniform way.

"In medicine, we often use codes to represent diagnoses, procedures, medications and other aspects of medical care," says Baxter. "These codes are useful for doing research and it's important to have consistent codes across different systems. There are many areas of ophthalmology that do not have adequate codes because we are a very specialized field with constant innovation. These codes are needed to help coordinate clinical care and also to enable downstream research that combines data from multiple sources. I am helping to lead international collaboration efforts to develop these codes and standards across multiple areas of ophthalmology and vision research and make better use of our data."

Baxter's second research area involves using big data to generate insights on risk factors, treatment outcomes and public health patterns regarding eye conditions. "I have developed models using statistics and AI approaches, and I am working on bringing these to clinical settings to hopefully improve patient care," she says. Noting that developing accurate, valid and equitable models in research environments is a challenge, Baxter says she is also very interested in how to tackle the implementation-related challenges while bringing these models into real-world, point-of-care clinical settings.

Supported by an anonymous donor through the ARVO Foundation, the Ludwig von Sallmann Clinician-Scientist Award honors the legacy of Dr. Ludwig von Sallmann, a distinguished international ophthalmologist and ophthalmic investigator whose contributions greatly increased the basic and clinical understanding of vision and ophthalmology. Award recipients are selected from invited speakers of the ARVO Annual Meeting who hold an MD, MD/PhD or equivalent and are age 45 or younger at the time of presentation. The awardee is recognized with an inscribed award and honorarium, and will present a lecture at the Annual Meeting.

Baxter says she is incredibly honored to receive this award and is grateful for the opportunity to share her work with the broader vision research community. "This is an incredible accolade that I hope will bring more awareness to the importance of data standards in eye care," she says. "This award provides additional motivation and support for me to continue my research, service, and teaching. I could not have achieved this without the support of many mentors, and I hope to pay it forward with my mentees/students. I thank the ARVO Foundation deeply for this honor and hope to make a positive impact on ophthalmology and vision research over the course of my career."

For more information about the Ludwig von Sallmann Clinician-Scientist Award, visit ARVO’s website.

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The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) is the largest eye and vision research organization in the world. Members include approximately 10,000 eye and vision researchers from over 75 countries. ARVO advances research worldwide into understanding the visual system and preventing, treating and curing its disorders. Learn more at ARVO.org.

Established in 2001, the ARVO Foundation for Eye Research raises funds through partnerships, grants and sponsorships to support ARVO’s world-class education and career development resources for eye and vision researchers of all stages of career and education. Learn more at ARVOFoundation.org.

For the full ARVO Article