Professor Seang-Mei Saw is internationally recognized for her pioneering contributions to understanding the environmental and genetic influences on myopia, its treatment and growing global burden. She is the Wallace Foulds Distinguished Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, Co-Head of the Myopia Department at the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI), and Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore (NUS). She earned her medical degree from NUS and her Master of Public Health and PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States.
Over several decades, Professor Saw has led landmark longitudinal myopia studies that have helped shape the field of myopia research. As Principal Investigator (PI), she has directed the 25-year Singapore Cohort of the Risk factors for Myopia (SCORM) of 1,979 children, the STARS myopia study of 3,009 pre-school children and the 16-year GUSTO Myopia study of 900 children. She also holds leadership roles in the international CREAM GWAS and CREAM-Kids myopia epidemiology consortia. Her international on-site projects include the Aier-SERI high myopia cohort in Changsha, central China, which aims to evaluate the prevalence, risk factors and longitudinal changes in Pathologic myopia, and its impact on quality of life. Professor Saw has an H index of 147, > 78,000 citations with over 630 publications in international journals including the Lancet, Nature Genetics and JAMA. As a PI and Co-Investigator, she has secured sustained large-scale competitive funding in her career with over 40 awarded research grants and funding more than $80 million from the Singapore’s National Medical Research Council and other grant funding agencies. Her collaborations span Asia, Europe, the United States and Australia, bringing together leading epidemiologists, geneticists, basic scientists, AI experts, optometrists and ophthalmologists. She has also served as PI and Co-I on grants from the World Health Organization, US National Institute of Health and Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council.
Prof Saw’s superlative work in myopia research has expanded the field tremendously in multiple directions- from epidemiology, genetics, clinical grading to treatment options in precision medicine. She holds patents for innovation, including Fit Sight, an outdoor fitness tracker designed for myopia prevention and a contact lens incorporating central and peripheral components to slow myopia progression. Professor Saw is an Editorial Board Member (EBM) of Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology (APJO), Ophthalmology and Therapy, and Case Reports in Ophthalmology. She has previously served on the editorial boards of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science (IOVS), Translational Vision Science and Technology (TVST) and Ophthalmic and Physiologic Optics (OPO). Prof Saw has been invited to speak at keynote and named lectures to large audiences in numerous countries spanning almost all continents including Asia, Europe, the US, South America, the Middle East, and Australia.
An accomplished mentor, Prof Saw has been the primary and co-supervisor of more than 12 PhD students and has mentored more than 20 research fellows and clinician scientists. Her mentees have gone on to set up leading myopia centres globally in Singapore, China, Japan, India and the Middle East, extending her influence across research, clinical practice, and public health. Her honours include the foremost national President’s Science Award, Singapore (Team) (2019); Top 50 Asia Women Tech Leaders Award (2024) and the Top 100 Ophthalmologist (2014,2023) and Top 100 Women in Ophthalmology (2022), Power List, The Ophthalmologist, She was named an ARVO Gold Fellow award (2015) and received the Chew Sek Jin Memorial Lecture Award at the International Myopia Conference (IMC) in 2013. She also Chaired the Clinical/Epidemiologic section of Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO’s) program committee in 2010 and has organized several myopia symposia at ARVO.
Professor Saw combines scientific rigor, collaborative leadership with a sustained commitment to translating evidence in public health action. Her work continues to shape how clinicians, researchers and policy makers worldwide approach myopia prevention and control, helping address one of the most pressing challenges in global eye health.