Dr. Ronald Smith, MD, FARVO, passed away on March 17, 2014. He served on the boards of NAEVR and AEVR since the alliances were founded in 1993. He  served as chairman of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine Department of Ophthalmology from 1995 to 2013. He resigned from the USC faculty in November 2013 and became medical director of the Doheny Eye Institute.

His research and clinical expertise centered in external eye disease, cornea and uveitis. He was a recipient of National Eye Institute grant support and  authored more than 300 scientific  publications. He was past president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and served for more than 10 years on the Academy Board of Trustees. He was past chair and board member of the American Board of Ophthalmology and is a member of honorary societies, including the American Ophthalmological Society, Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars.  

  He has received numerous awards including the Light Award from the Braille Institute of America, the Gold Medal of the International Uveitis Study Group, the Castroviejo Medal of the Cornea Society and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.