Biography
Ian B. Berger, M.D., Dr.P.H. is the founding president of InFOCUS and director of the InFOCUS Center for Primary Eye Care Development. A Yale and University of Texas - educated public health specialist, Dr. Berger is a Visiting Associate Professor of Community and International Health at the University of Houston College of Optometry, Adjunct Professor of International Health at the University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health, and Senior Lecturer at the Tumaini University School of Medicine, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Moshi, Tanzania. For over 30 years Berger has worked with governments, universities and health organizations to foster community-based health care initiatives in developing countries and rural America.
Berger was instrumental in founding the River Blindness Foundation and served as Director of Community Eye Care for ORBIS International. Berger has held leadership roles in the American Public Health Association, and chaired the Committee on International Health and the Vision Care Section. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry, where he served as Vice-Chair of the Public Health Section. In 1987 Berger organized InFOCUS as an outreach project of the University of Houston College of Optometry. With Dr. Larry Spitzberg, Berger developed and patented the FOCOMETER, an inexpensive portable device for measuring visual refractive errors. In 1995, Berger formed a steering committee to establish InFOCUS as an independent, non-profit organization to implement programs based on the strategies developed by the project. Throughout the last two decades, Berger has consulted with Lions Sight First Programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America, winning special recognition for his work with River Blindness control in endemic areas of Africa and for children's ophthalmic disease in populations of refugee children in southeast Asia. In 1990 Berger was named a Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International, and in 1994 received the Jefferson Award from the American Institute of Public Service. In 1995 he earned the Distinguished Service Award of the American Public Health Association, Vision Care Section. In 1998 Berger received the Outstanding Achievement Award of the University of Houston College of Optometry. |
