Dr. Soosan Jacob, MS, FRCS, DNB, MNAMS is Director and Chief of Dr. Agarwal’s Refractive and Cornea Foundation (DARCF) and Senior Consultant in Cataract and Glaucoma Services, Dr. Agarwal’s Group of Eye Hospitals, Chennai, India. She is a noted speaker widely respected for her innovative techniques and management of complex surgical scenarios.

She has been featured as one among five of the most influential female figures in ophthalmology at a virtual roundtable; listed on the prestigious Power Lists 2022 and 2021 of the Top 100 most influential people in the world of Ophthalmology and the Top 100 most influential women Ophthalmologists in the world, both published by the influential "The Ophthalmologist," a leading publication in the field. She has been included in the KOL Influencers list of 50 notable global figures in Ophthalmology by Media MICE, another leading and influential Ophthalmic publication in consequent years. In addition, she is listed in Stanford's 2021 and 2022 lists of top 2 percentile scientists from around the world (published by Elsevier).

She has been the recipient of the following prestigious International awards: JRS (Journal of Refractive Surgery) Waring medal for Editorial excellence; ISRS (International Society of Refractive Surgery) Kritzinger Memorial award (the first Indian and the first woman internationally to receive this award); ISRS Founder’s award (the first Indian to receive this award); Innovator’s award (Connecticut Society of Eye Physicians); ESCRS (European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery) John Henahan award for Young Ophthalmologist; AAO (American Academy of Ophthalmology) International Ophthalmologist Education Award; AAO International Scholar award; AAO Achievement award; AAO Senior Achievement award; AAO Secretariat award; ASCRS (American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery) Top-Gun Instructor Award; Bruce Jackson oration (Canadian Ophthalmological Society); Harold Stein Innovator lecture (Canadian Ophthalmological Society); Ronald G. Michels Lectureship (Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University); and is also a two time recipient of ASCRS Golden Apple award and also the prestigious Indian awards: IIRSI (Intraocular Implant and Refractive Society of India) Special Gold medal; UKSOS Gold medal (Uttarakhand); AM Gokhale award and oration (Pune Ophthalmic Society); Dr. TN Gopinathan Menon memorial Oration award & gold medal (Cochin Ophthalmic Club), Dr P R Mondal Memorial Oration Award (Ophthalmic Society of West Bengal), the Silver Jubilee Ishwarchandra Oration Award (Vidarbha Ophthalmic Society), Diva Eye Institute Oration (All Gujarat Ophthalmological Society) and TNOA SS Badrinath SOA SN Alumni Award of Honor. In addition, she has won more than 50 prestigious international awards for her surgical videos as well as Best Paper of Session awards on her innovations and challenging cases at prestigious international conferences in United States and Europe.

She conducts courses and delivers lectures in numerous national and international conferences. She has delivered Keynote lectures at various international and national conferences including the recent (2018) Swiss Society of Ophthalmology annual conference and 2019 annual conference of Ophthalmological Society of Sweden. She has been invited twice to teach her techniques and innovations by Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Miami, USA which is the number 1 ranked Eye Institute in the world, to Wilmer Eye Institute - Johns Hopkins University, Yale University and also to many other hospitals including King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital, Riyadh; Jules Gonin Eye Institute, Swizerland; Sao Geraldo Hospital, Brazil and many others. She has been the Program director for the International Society of Refractive Surgery (ISRS) Symposium at the ESCRS, Paris 2019 as well as the Program Coordinator Asia-Pacific for Refractive Surgery Program for the World Ophthalmology Congress, Cape Town 2020.

She has authored more than 110 peer reviewed publications, more than 200 chapters in 34 textbooks and is editor for 17 Ophthalmology textbooks and reviewer for many prestigious journals. She has helped shape scientific sessions of important events by holding key positions such as Program Director - ISRS Symposium, ESCRS 2019, Paris; Member - Refractive Surgery Program Committee, World Ophthalmology Conference, 2020, Cape Town, South Africa, Executive Committee member GERSO, Chair- Cornea Committee GERSO among others.

She is Chair of the Multimedia Editorial Board AAO-ISRS (American Academy of Ophthalmology - International Society of Refractive Surgery), member ISRS Executive Committee, associate editor Journal of Refractive Surgery, associate editor Journal of Refractive Surgery Case Reports, Section Editor (Refractive Surgery) - EyeNet (American Academy of Ophthalmology), Executive Committee member- Global Education and Research Society of Ophthalmology -GERSO, Council Board Member of the GERSO (the first woman member on the GERSO council and one of the initial members who helped shape its aims and objectives), Chair of the Cornea Committee - GERSO and is on editorial board of Indian Journal of Ophthalmology, EyeNet (AAO), EuroTimes, IJKECD, Ocular Surgery News-AsiaPacific, Glaucoma Today, Cataract and Refractive Surgery Today-Europe, Medical Hypothesis in Optometry, Tamil Nadu Ophthalmic Association-JOSR and Ophthalmology & Therapy.

She has special interest in cutting edge cataract, cornea, glaucoma, complex anterior segment reconstruction and refractive surgery. Her innovations, many of which have won international awards, include anterior segment transplantation, where cornea, sclera, artificial iris, pupil and IOL are transplanted enbloc for anterior staphyloma; suprabrow single stab incision ptosis surgery to enhance postoperative cosmesis; turnaround techniques for false channel dissection during Intacs implantation; Glued Endo-Capsular Ring, Glued Capsular Hook and the Paper clip capsule stabilizer for subluxated cataracts; Stab Incision Glaucoma Surgery (SIGS) as a guarded filtration surgery technique; Contact lens assisted crosslinking (CACXL) for safely crosslinking thin keratoconic corneas; Endo-illuminator assisted DMEK (E-DMEK), Air Pump Assisted PDEK and host Descemetic scaffolding for easier and better surgical results; PrEsbyopic Allogenic Refractive Lenticule (PEARL) Inlay for treating presbyopia, Corneal Allogeneic Intrastromal ring Segment (CAIRS) and Customized CAIRS for Keratoconus and other corneal ectasias; the Jacob modified technique for pre-Descemetic DALK as a primary treatment for acute hydrops; sutureless SMILE lenticule assisted resurfacing with interface tattooing for limbal dermoid; White Ring sign and the Sequential segmental terminal lenticular side cut dissection for safe and effective lenticule extraction in SMILE surgery She has proposed a new classification of Descemet’s membrane detachments into rhegmatogenous, tractional, bullous and complex detachments with a suitable treatment algorithm and a new technique of relaxing descemetotomy for bullous and tractional Descemet’s detachment.

Her surgeries and surgical techniques have often been Editor’s Choice in prestigious International Ophthalmic websites (AAO/ ONE network, ISRS, Eyetube etc). She has two popular bimonthly columns, “Complications in Cataract and Refractive Surgery” and “Everything you want to know about” in the prestigious EuroTimes magazine published by ESCRS. She is also the first surgeon internationally to be featured in a dedicated webpage by the EuroTimes. She has her own surgical educational YouTube channel: Dr. Soosan Jacob, with more than 10,000 subscribers. Her video blog “Journey into the Eye - A surgeon’s Video blog” in the prestigious Ocular Surgery News, USA and her Facebook pages also feature her surgical videos. Dr. Jacob is senior faculty for training postgraduate, fellowship and overseas doctors.

Her life and work have been featured on the Ocular Surgery News cover page, “5Q” interview (prestigious Cataract and Refractive Surgery Today – CRST), “Sound off” column (CRST), “One Day in the Life of…” (CRST) and “Around the World” column (MillenialEye), and is also the first researcher internationally to be interviewed in the prestigious CRST “Researcher’s Column”. In addition, her work has been featured extensively in print version as well as through video interviews by EyeWorld, EyeNet AAO, EuroTimes, Ophthalmology Times, OSN-Healio, CRST, Glaucoma Today, Ophthalmologist, Review of Ophthalmology and others. She is active academically on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. She can be contacted at dr_soosanj@hotmail.com.

Financial disclosure: Dr. Jacob has/had an affiliation (financial or otherwise) with a commercial organization:

1. Madhu
2. Ziemer
3. *Patent for special trephines, devices and processes used to create these segments as well as for the CAIRS segments and various types of shaped corneal segments