H. Burkhard Dick, M.D., Ph.D., FEBOS-CR

Burkhard Dick was born in a small town by the name of Brake in Northern Germany. After graduating from the local high school, he served for two years as a medical officer with Germany's NATO forces. He attended medical school at the University of Giessen, a city with a strong American presence during the Cold War, where he graduated in 1990, a year that saw German unification and changed Giessen's location where he began his residency in ophthalmology from bordertown at the edge of the Iron Curtain to suddenly being in the country's geographical centre.

Dick became head physician at the University Eye Hospital in 1995 before he moved to the Eye Hospital of the University of Mainz which bears the name of that city's greatest son, Johannes Gutenberg. Here he specialized in refractive and cataract surgery and became head of the hospital's Refractive Surgical Eye CareCenter in 1997. Shortly after becoming a clinical professor in Mainz, the University of Bochumoffered offered Burkhard Dick the position of head and director of its eye clinic and eye research centre which he accepted in 2006. Since then, the Bochum University Eye Clinic has become an internationally renowned institution with a constant output of highly ranked research papers and clinical studies, most of them published in the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery and the Journal of Refractive Surgery.

Burkhard Dick became one of the first ophthalmic surgeons in Europe to use a femtosecond laser in cataract surgery; to date almost 12,000 eyes have been operated with that technology in Bochum.

For his pioneering work, he has been awarded a number of honours like the Choyce Medal of the British Ophthalmological Society, the Gold Medal Award of the Australian Society for Cataract and Refractive Surgery, the Waring Medal of the Journal of Refractive Surgery and, most recently, the Visionary Award of the American-European Congress of Ophthalmic Surgery (AECOS).

He currently serves as the Treasurer of the German Society of Cataract, Refractive and Interventional Surgery (DGII) after being President of the DGII for four years (2016-2020). He is a regular lecturer at international meetings like the AAO, DOG, DOC, DGII, ESCRS, APAO and ASCRS and has instructed fellows in the University Eye Hospital Bochum from 44 different countries in state-of-the-art cataract, refractive, glaucoma and vitreoretinal surgery.

Filomena Ribeiro

Filomena Ribeiro is Chair of the Ophthalmology Department of Hospital da Luz Lisbon and is professor of Ophthalmology and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Lisbon.

Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Lisbon with the dissertation “Personalized Pseudophakic eye model for IOL power calculation” (University of Lisbon) and has a postgraduate degree in Leadership (PAAO) and management for healthcare institutions (AESE Business School) and is Fellow of the European Board of Ophthalmology.

She was Chair of the Portuguese Group of Ocular Inflammation of the Portuguese Society of Ophthalmology and of the Portuguese Group of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Board and Secretary of the Portuguese Ophthalmology College and National representative of the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS).

She has developed and is Director of the Cataract Surgery simulated courses in Portugal. Nacional Ophthalmology Jury and EBO and EBO-CR Examiner.

Researcher at the Visual Sciences Research Centre, at the Plasma Physics, Laser and nuclear Fusion Department at Lisbon University and PI of the Learning Health Vision Group at Hospital da Luz Lisbon. Her research interests are in the field of IOL power calculation, presbyopia correction and cataract surgery innovation. Filomena is currently the President of the ESCRS.

Founder, chief surgeon and CEO of Gemini Eye Clinics in the Czech Republic and Vienna with 350 employees performing over 40 000 surgeries annually. In 2022 he founded corneal eye bank.

AECOS Europe President (2022-24), ESCRS treasurer (2025-26) and council member (2017-2025). He teaches ophthalmology at Charles University in Prague and gave over 1 000 presentations worldwide and holds several patents regarding ophthalmic devices.

The world firsts: presbyopic diffractive phakic IOL implantation (2014). Co-inventor of CAPSULaser and performed world first CAPSULaser capsulotomy (2015) and received the 1st price in innovative category for CAPSULaser video at ESCRS meeting in Copenhagen (2016). World first hydrophobic trifocal FineVision IOL (2016) implantation and EDOF LuxSmart IOL (2021) implantation.

He designed Presbyopic Bio-synthetic Collagen Corneal Inlay and performed its world first implantation (2018). He performed the world first femtomatrix laser cataract surgery (2019), the Presbyopic SMILE (2023) and the first hyperopic SMILE outside of clinical study (2024) and intraocular modification of Monofocal IOL into multifocal by laser refractive index change (2024). 

Surgeon dedicated to innovations who performed the first in his country Lasik (1994), MICS (2001), Femtolasik (2006), DMEK (2006), FLACS Femtocataract (2012) and many other surgeries.

He happened to return vision by Boston KPRO to several patients, blind for many years including a man blind for over 53 years which was published as the longest blindness ever cured. He performed cataract surgery on the Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus.

He received several honors including Emilio Campos Medal Lecture for innovations from Italian Ophthalmology Society (2022) and the reward from a president of the Czech Republic for services to the state (2022).

Thomas Kohnen

Goethe-University
Frankfurt, Germany

Thomas Kohnen is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology, Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, and he is Visiting Professor of Ophthalmology at the Cullen Eye Institute, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA.

Prof. Kohnen studied medicine in Germany, Italy, India and the USA before specializing in ophthalmology in 1989. After his residency, he was awarded a 2-year scholarship from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to study at the Cullen Eye Institute in 1995–1996, where he pioneered corneal refractive surgery and developed research tools for IOL quality control. He gained an additional degree in Healthcare Management in 2006–2007.

He is an international expert in the anterior segment with specialization in cataract, intraocular lenses (IOLs), refractive and cornea surgery as well as treatment of glaucoma and retinal problems. His research focuses on IOLs, laser technology and cataract, refractive (in particular now presbyopia) and corneal surgery.

Prof. Kohnen is Editor of the Journal of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, Associate Editor of Der Ophthalmologe, Focal Topic Editor of Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde, Ad Hoc Associate Editor of American Journal of Ophthalmology, Editorial Board member of Graefe's Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology and a frequent peer reviewer for top journals.

He is (co-)author of almost 630 publications, (co-)promotor of 101 PhDs students and gave more than
500 invited lectures.

He is Treasurer and past president of the German Ophthalmological Society (DOG), Past President of the
German Speaking Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (DGII), President of the Verein Rhein-Mainischer Augenärzte, and President of the International Intraocular Implant Club (IIIC).

He is the recipient of several prestigious awards including the American Academy of Ophthalmology Lifetime Achievement Honor Award in 2019, the Gold Medal of the Australasian Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons in 2018 as well as the silver (2014) and platinum medal (2019) of the German Ophthalmic Surgery (DOC) and the scientific award of the German Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery (DGII) in 2022.