Wallace Alward

Affiliation

University of Iowa

Biography

Wallace L.M. Alward, MD – better known as “Lee” – was born in Canada and moved to Ohio at age six. He received his undergraduate degree from Kenyon College and his M.D. from the Ohio State University. Intending to become an orthopedic surgeon he completed a general surgery internship at the University of Pittsburgh before fulfilling a two-year obligation with the US Public Health Service. The two years turned into six years in Alaska; four as a General Medical Officer with the Indian Health Service in Bethel and Ketchikan and two as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the CDC’s Arctic Investigations Laboratory in Anchorage. Impressed with the wide range of eye diseases in the Yup’ik Eskimo population, his interest in orthopedics morphed into ophthalmology. Dr. Alward completed his residency at the University of Louisville and his glaucoma fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. Following fellowship, he became Director of the Glaucoma Service at the University of Iowa, assuming the position that was held by the first AGS Honoree, the late Dr. Charles D. Phelps. Dr. Alward has spent his entire ophthalmology career at the University of Iowa where he rose to be Professor and Vice-Chairman and held the Frederick C. Blodi Endowed Chair. Through the generosity of his Bascom Palmer mentors he began his career as an investigator in the Fluorouracil Filtering Surgery Study and the Collaborative Normal Tension Glaucoma Study. Dr. Alward arrived at Iowa just as the molecular genetics program was ramping up. He dove into genetics research and was on the initial papers describing the disease-causing effects of mutations in myocilin, PITX2, FOXC1 and TBK1. He is an author on >160 peer-reviewed papers that have been cited more than 12,000 times. Dr. Alward has given 25 named lectures including the AGS Lecture and the Goldmann Lecture of the Glaucoma Research Society. Dr. Alward’s real passion is teaching. He has trained 37 glaucoma fellows. He has authored two textbooks: Color Atlas of Gonioscopy and The Requisites: Glaucoma. He maintains a website to teach gonioscopy (gonioscopy.org) that contains over 250 gonioscopy videos. His Iowa Glaucoma Curriculum website is a fifty-lecture curriculum for ophthalmology residents. Both websites are free and are used around the world. The AGS presented the inaugural Outstanding Educator award to Dr. Alward in 2016. Dr. Alward served as a Director of the American Board of Ophthalmology from 2006 to 2013 and was Chair in 2012. A frequent volunteer with Orbis he was named a “Hero of Orbis” in 2020. Lee is proudest of his family. He and Kazi have three children and five grandchildren – all of whom live in Iowa City. He retired from the University of Iowa in 2020 but continues to staff a resident clinic at the VA Hospital one day a week. He had the special joy of practicing with his daughter, Dr. Erin Boese, for his last three years on the Iowa faculty.