Carmen A. Puliafito MD, MBA

Dr. Puliafito was recently reappointed to a second term as Dean of the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, a position he has held since 2007. Prior to assuming the deanship, he served as director of the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Before joining Bascom Palmer, Dr. Puliafito served as founding director of the New England Eye Center and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Tufts University from 1991 to 2001.

Dr. Puliafito started his career at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Harvard Medical School, where he was founder of the Laser Research Laboratory, director of the Morse Laser Center, a member of the Retina Service, and associate professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. He is recognized as co-inventor of the technology of optical coherence tomography (OCT), and was the first ophthalmologist to use this technology to study the human macula in health and disease. For his work on OCT, Dr. Puliafito was awarded (along with James Fujimoto and Eric Swanson) the 2002 Rank Prize -- the world’s most prestigious award in optoelectronics. In 2012, he was awarded (along with James Fujimoto, Eric Swanson, David Huang and Joel Schuman) the Champalimaud Vision Award, often called the “Nobel Prize for Vision.”