This award honors the best abstract presentation by a resident at the NANOS Annual Meeting, celebrating excellence in early‑career research and scientific communication.

Listed below are all past recipients of this distinction.

2026

• TBA

2025

• Alexander Kwok, MD — "Prevalence of Multiple Sclerosis, Neuromyelitis Optica, and Myelin Oligodendrocyte Associated Disease in Patients with Optic Neuritis: A United States Large Database Study

2024

• Amy (Mung Yan) Lin — Emergency Department (ED) Non-Mydriatic Fundus Photography Expediates Care for Patients Referred For “Papilledema"

2023

• Kevin Zhang, BS, MS, MD, PhD — Elevated Intracranial Pressures And Papilledema In A Mouse Model Of Glucocorticoid Induced Adrenal Insufficiency

2022

• James Mitchell, MB, BS, MRCP — A Randomized Controlled, Trial of the GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Exenatide in Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension

2021

• Michael James Gilhooley, MB, PhD, FRCOphth — Ectopic Melanopsin for Visual Restoration: Compressed Cell-Specific Promotors – a Translatable Delivery Mechanism

2020

• Jenny Hepschke, MBBS, BSc(MED), PhD — Is Visual Snow a thalamo-cortical dysrhythmia of the visual processing system – a magnetoencephalogram study

2019

• Michael J. Gilhooley, MA, MB, BChir, FRCOphth — Melanopsin: targeted ectopic expression for optogenetic visual restoration

2018

• Rawan Omary, MD — Buzzing Sympathetic Nerves: A New Test to Enhance Reflex Pupil Dilation in Suspected Horner Syndrome

2017

• Lasse Malmqvist, MD from Rigshospitalet, Glostrup, Denmark — Optic Disc Drusen in children: The Copenhagen Child Cohort 2000 Eye Study

2016

• Kimberly K. Gokoffski, MD — Electrical Fields Direct Retinal Ganglion Cell Axon Growth

2015

• Enrique J. Rivera, MD — Chronic Optic Neuropathy Causes Decreases in both Inner Retinal Blood Flow and Prelaminar Optic Nerve Blood Flow

2014

• Ajay E. Kuriyan, MD — Orbital Fibroblasts from Thyroid Eye Disease Patients Differ in Proliferative and Adipogenic Responses Depending on Disease Sub-type

2013

• Cynthia Yu-Wai-Man, MBBS, FRCOphth — Extraocular muscle atrophy and central nervous system involvement in chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia – a structural and spectroscopic magnetic resonance study

2012

• Karen Schmitt, MD — Transmeningeal Drug Delivery to the Optic Nerve

2011

• Patrick Yu-Wai-Man, MD, PhD — Efficacy and Safety of Idebenone in Patients with Leber’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON): Results of a 6-Month Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial (RHODOS)

2010

• Patrick Yu-Wai-Man, MD — Multi-System Neurological Disease is Common in Patients with OPA1 Mutations

2009

• Daniel Barthelmes, MD, FEBO — Retinal Hemorrhages in High Altitude Mountaineers

2008

• Sashank Prasad, MD — Cross-Modal Language Processing in the Visual Cortex of the Congenitally Blind

2007

• Melissa W. Ko, MD — Assessment of Visual Dysfunction in Parkinson’s Disease

2006

• Clare Fraser, MBBS — One Year Multiple Sclerosis Conversion Rates for Patients with Multifocal Visual Evoked Potential (MVEP) Latency Delay

2005

• Clare Fraser, MBBS — Multifocal Visual Evoked Potentials in the Differential Diagnosis of Acute Optic Neuritis

2004

• Gregory F. Wu, MD, PhD — Visual Function and Disease Phenotype in Multiple Sclerosis