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D r . J i l l i a B i r d ( C l a s s o f ‘ 8 9 )
of the Caribbean island of Antigua was
named the 2013 Alumna of the Year by the SUNY College of Optometry Alumni Board.
Extremely active in the Caribbean’s glaucoma awareness movement, Dr. Bird was also
named president of the World Glaucoma Patient Association earlier this year and she
received the World Council of Optometry’s International Optometrist of the Year award last
April in Malaga, Spain. She is also a board member of The Glaucoma Foundation in New
York and Caribbean coordinator for the World Glaucoma Week Committee.
Upon graduating from the College in 1989, Dr. Bird spent two years working with
SUNY Stony Brook and later with the Barbados Eye Study in Bridgetown, Barbados, the
largest glaucoma study ever conducted in a black population which identified more people
with open angle glaucoma than any previous population study. Dr. Bird then began a
private practice back in Antigua.
In 2007, Dr. Bird founded the Antigua and Barbuda Glaucoma Support Group, a
thriving patient support and advocacy group that successfully lobbied Antigua’s government
to recognize the public health threat that glaucoma poses to its predominantly African-origin
population.
“I have made blindness prevention my life’s work, “ Dr. Bird has said. “And I am indebted
to the SUNY College of Optometry for starting me on this path and mentoring me along
the way.”
Alumni Spotlights
D r . D a v i d D a m a r i ( C l a s s o f ‘ 8 8 ) ,
was named dean of the Michigan
College of Optometry at Ferris State University (MCO) last March. Dr. Damari had previously
served as chair of the Department of Assessment and professor at Southern College of
Optometry (SCO) in Memphis, TN. Since 1995, he has been a national consultant on
visual disabilities.While at SCO he also received the President’s Special Recognition Award.
Prior to joining SCO, Dr. Damari worked in private practice in New York and served as
an assistant clinical professor at the College. He also completed a residency at the College
in 1989.
“Dr. Damari has a passion for the profession of optometry and a keen awareness of
the changes that will occur in health care and health care education over the next few
decades,” said Dr. Fritz Erickson, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at MCO.
Dr. Damari has been president of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development and
co-chair at the Summer Institute for Faculty Development for the Association of Schools and
Colleges of Optometry. As a student at SUNY, Dr. Damari earned the Fredrick W. Brock
Memorial Award for Outstanding Performance in Vision Training.
