Prof Nathan Congdon, MD, MPH, is Ulverscroft Chair of Global Eye Health at Queen’s University Belfast and Director of Research and North Asia Advisor for ORBIS International. Prof Congdon is a Visiting Professor at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (ZOC) in Guangzhou, and was based there and elsewhere in China for nearly ten years until 2015.  

He received an AB degree from Princeton University and an MPhil from Cambridge in the UK, both in Oriental studies, and is fluent in written and spoken Chinese.  His medical and public health education and ophthalmology training were at Johns Hopkins University.

Prof Congdon’s work involves the design and evaluation of high-quality, low-cost models of eye care delivery in areas of limited resources, especially in low and middle-income countries. He increasingly focuses on trials assessing the impact of vision care on development outcomes such as educational performance, workplace productivity and traffic safety.

In addition to other recognitions, Prof Congdon has received the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology’s highest prize for blindness prevention work in 2009, a Chinese government Thousand Man Plan award in 2011 and a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award in 2021. His research has been supported by the UK government MRC, Wellcome Trust, EU, World Diabetes Foundation, USAID, WHO, World Bank, the United States NIH, several NGOs and the governments of China and Hong Kong. He has over 300 peer-reviewed publications in journals including Lancet Global Health, BMJ and JAMA.