The Packo Service Award
The American Society of Retina Specialists established the Packo Service Award in 2019 to recognize a member for exceptional service to the Society.
The award is named for its first recipient, Kirk H. Packo, MD, FACS, FASRS, professor and chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology and director of the Retina Section at Rush University Medical Center.
Dr. Packo’s dynamic leadership and strategic innovations over 30 years helped shape the ASRS into an internationally recognized medical organization that encompasses all things retina.
Dr. Packo, who served as president of the Society from 2001-2002, served as a driving force behind many of the Society’s cornerstone initiatives, including the Preferences and Trends Survey and Film Festival.
2023 Packo Service Award Recipient
Dr. Murray is editor in chief of the Journal of VitreoRetinal Diseases, the official ASRS peer-reviewed scientific journal. He served as the 2019-2020 president of the ASRS and the 2020-2021 president of the Foundation. Dr. Murray has been instrumental in the Foundation’s ‘See For a Lifetime. See a Retina Specialist’ public outreach campaign. He continues to host the Foundation’s Retina Health for Life podcast, designed to educate the public about the retina’s role in making healthy vision possible, and is a co-director of the History of Retina initiative.
In 2012, Dr. Murray founded the private Ocular Oncology and Retina Center, where he continues to provide care for patients from around the world who struggle with life- and sight-threatening eye disease. He is also a prolific researcher who has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and chapters in the field of vitreoretinal surgery and ocular oncology.
During his early academic career, Dr. Murray worked to develop an integrated ocular oncology service at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, where he remains a tenured professor emeritus in ophthalmology and radiation oncology.
Dr. Murray also has served on the executive committee of the Retina Society, as an associate examiner for the American Board of Ophthalmology, and in key leadership positions in the International Society of Ocular Oncology (ISOO), including program chairman for the International Congress of Ocular Oncology. He is a member of the Macula Society and Club Jules Gonin, and a fellow of the ASRS, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO).
Past Recipients
2022 Suber S. Huang, MD, MBA, FASRS
2021 Reginald J. Sanders, MD, FASRS
2020 ASRS Founders, Jerald Bovino, MD, FASRS, Roy Levit, MD, FASRS, and Allen Verne, MD, FASRS
2019 Kirk H. Packo, MD, FACS, FASRS