Iowa Eye Association News Sept, 2002. Series 2, no. 37.

University of Iowa Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences

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Faculty Promotions

Effective July 1st, Drs. Karen Gehrs and Young Kwon have been promoted to Associate Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology.

Karen M. Gehrs, MD, came to the University of Iowa in August of 1996. She is a faculty member in the Vitreoretinal Diseases and Surgery Service. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Iowa, she was a clinical assistant professor at the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Kansas, Kansas City and the University of Missouri-Columbia, as well as in private practice with Mid-America Retina Consultants in Kansas City, Missouri. She was also an assistant professor at Anheuser-Busch Eye Institute of St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee and her medical degree from the University of Missouri, Columbia. Her ophthalmology residency training and vitreoretinal fellowship were both done at Duke University Eye Center. Dr. Gehrs' research interests are diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema. She is also very active in the study of age-related eye disease.

Young H. Kwon, MD, PhD, is one of two faculty members on the Glaucoma Service. He has a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a PhD in Neuroscience from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his MD degree from Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Kwon received his ophthalmology training at the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary. He was a fellow in glaucoma at the Yale University School of Medicine. His current research interests include optical imaging of the retinal function, gene expression in the trabecular meshwork and ciliary body of donors with glaucoma, regeneration of the optic nerve with stem cells in glaucoma, and long-term study of optic discs in primary open-angle glaucoma. Dr. Kwon was a clinical instructor for a year in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Yale University School of Medicine before joining the University of Iowa faculty in 1996.