Julia A. Haller, MD, Chief Executive Officer and Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at Wills Eye Hospital, is a trailblazing retina surgeon-scientist and leader who has innovated translational advances against blindness on many fronts.
Dr. Haller was educated at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Princeton University and Harvard Medical School. After her Halsted internship in surgery at Johns Hopkins, residency in ophthalmology and retina fellowship at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, she served as Wilmer’s first female Chief Resident. Recruited to the Hopkins faculty thereafter, Haller directed the retina fellowship, was named to the inaugural Katharine Graham Chair in Ophthalmology, and subsequently to the inaugural Robert Bond Welch, M.D. Professorship. In 2007, she was appointed Ophthalmologist-in-Chief and William Tasman, MD Endowed Chair at Wills Eye Hospital, and Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospitals. She is a Consultant at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. One of the world’s most renowned retina surgeons, Dr. Haller has published over 400 scientific articles and book chapters, with research interests in retinal pharmacology, diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, complicated retinal detachments, health care disparities, and gender equity.
Elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019, Dr. Haller’s honors include the Rolex Achievement Award (to a past NCAA lacrosse player), the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Honor Award, the AAO Senior Achievement Award, the Vitreous Society Senior Honor Award, the Crystal Apple Award (for mentorship) of the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS), the Kreissig Award from EURETINA, the President’s Award from Women in Ophthalmology (WIO), a Secretariat Award from the AAO, the Gertrude Pyron Award from the Retina Research Foundation/ASRS, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the AAO, the Louis Braille Award from Associated Services for the Blind, the Heed Award from the Society of Heed Fellows, the Donald Gass Medal from the Macula Society, the Strittmatter Award from the Philadelphia Medical Society (their highest honor), the AAO EnergEYES Award, the WIO Suzanne Véronneau-Troutman Award, the Charles L. Schepens, MD Award from the Retina Research Foundation/AAO, and election to the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. She holds Chair XVI of the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis, chairs the Heed Ophthalmic Foundation, is President of the Macula Society, and serves on the AAO Foundation Board of Advisors. She is past president of the American Ophthalmological Society, The Retina Society, the American Society of Retina Specialists, the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation, and the Board of Trustees of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology, as well as a founding member of Women in Retina. Her editorial board service includes RETINA, Retinal Physician, Retina Times, Ocular Surgery News, Retina Today, and Ophthalmology Times.
A Director of Bristol Myers Squibb and Outlook Therapeutics, a former Director of Celgene Corporation, Eyenovia, and Opthea, and past Trustee of Princeton University and the Bryn Mawr School, Dr. Haller is Past President of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Alumni Association, Past President of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Chair, Section 6 of National Academy of Medicine, and on the Executive Committee and Board of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center, Inc. She was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania by Governor Shapiro in 2023, and recipient of the Logan Award from the National Society of Colonial Dames in 2024. She and her husband, John D. Gottsch, MD, the Margaret C. Mosher Professor of Ophthalmology at Hopkins, have five children: John, Natalie, Will, Alex, and Clare.
