The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) has named Dr. Ellen Konadu Antwi-Adjei, optometrist and lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi (KNUST), as the recipient of its 2026 Emerging Advocate Award, recognising her growing influence in global eye health policy and advocacy.
The Emerging Advocate Award honours early-career ARVO members who are integrating advocacy into their professional work in vision science and eye health.
Antwi-Adjei, who is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, combines her academic research with frontline advocacy aimed at expanding access to quality eye care, particularly for underserved and marginalised communities.
She is actively involved in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded Alabama Screening and Intervention for Glaucoma and Eye Health through Telemedicine (AL-SIGHT) programme, where she evaluates portable visual field devices for detecting and monitoring glaucoma.
Through this work, she has presented research findings to policymakers, demonstrating that telemedicine can serve as a scalable and cost-effective tool for early detection and improved equitable access to care.
As an optometrist, public health specialist, educator and scientist, Dr. Antwi-Adjei has focused her career on ensuring that scientific discovery translates into meaningful policy reform.
Her commitment to advocacy began in Ghana, where she encountered preventable vision loss driven by systemic barriers to care. Those experiences, she noted, shaped her belief “that scientific advancement alone is insufficient unless paired with intentional engagement with patients, legislators, and professional organizations.”
While in Ghana, she organised and facilitated public awareness initiatives including Optometry Week, Vision Aid Overseas activities and World Glaucoma Week campaigns.
She also engaged regional policymakers, participated in World Sight Day activities and led outreach eye camps at schools for the deaf across villages in the Ashanti Region. In addition, she has served as an invited speaker for professional and advocacy bodies such as the Ghana Optometric Association, the Nigerian Optometric Association and Women Graduate-USA.
In the United States, Antwi-Adjei has continued her advocacy through community education and federal engagement. She has volunteered as an educator at a science-focused children’s museum in Birmingham, visited elementary schools to promote ocular health awareness and participated in Capitol Hill advocacy events, including Prevent Blindness’s Eyes on Capitol Hill initiative, where she advocated for CDC Vision and Eye Health funding and the Early Detection of Vision Impairments for Children (EDVI) Act.
In March 2025, she was invited to present at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW69), further amplifying her voice in global conversations on health equity and gender inclusion in science.
