Guest Profile
Randy Kardon Ph.D.
Randy Kardon, M.D., Ph.D., is tenured Professor of Ophthalmology and Directed the Neuro-ophthalmology Service at the University of Iowa and Veterans Administration Hospitals for the past 20 years. He holds the Pomerantz Family Chair in Ophthalmology and is Director of the Iowa City Veterans Administration Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Visual Loss. Dr. Kardon has published over 20 chapters, co-authored a textbook, and has published over 220 peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Kardon is presently the Principal Investigator or co-PI on 8 major grants externally funded by the Veterans Administration, NIH, and the Department of Defense, including the Chronic Effects of Neurotrauma Consortium (CENC) for a prospective study entitled “Visual Sensory Impairments and Progression Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.” He did most of his training, undergraduate and combined M.D.-Ph.D. residency with a two-year fellowship in neuro-ophthalmology, at the University of Iowa, and started as faculty in Ophthalmology in 1989. In 1990, he was funded for his VA research and was one of the first ophthalmologists to receive a VA Career Development Award. Dr. Kardon currently teaches and mentors undergraduate students, medical students, and residents and has received a University of Iowa Collegiate Teaching Award for his teaching and commitment to education. He currently serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Neuro-ophthalmology. His main areas of current research interest include use of facial features to diagnose and monitor eye and neurological disorders, pupil physiology and its clinical application, diagnosis and treatment of light sensitivity, traumatic brain injury and its treatment, therapeutic interventions for preserving vision in blinding eye diseases, and investigating structure-function relationships in the visual system using optical coherence tomography (OCT), ocular blood flow, image analysis, and MRI. Dr. Kardon is actively involved in the development of telemedicine tools for objectively evaluating the status of the visual and neurological systems for testing in remote locations.
