Joseph L. Demer MD, PhD
Arthur L. Rosenbaum Professor of Ophthalmology and Professor of Neurology; Chief, Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus Division; Director, Ocular Motility Laboratories. Stein Eye Institute and Department of Ophthalmology, Department of Neurology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CaliforniaDr. Joseph L. Demer received his MD and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins in 1983, where his dissertation research in the Wilmer Institute involved the role of olivocerebellar pathways in plasticity of reflexive eye movements. While Ophthalmology resident at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Dr. Demer was appointed to the research faculty and received his first R01 grant from the National Eye Institute (NEI) for study of human vestibulo-ocular reflexes. With the blessing of mentor Gunter K. von Noorden, MD, Dr. Demer continued this research during fellowship in Pediatric Ophthalmology at Texas Children’s Hospital. Also during fellowship, Dr. Demer published the first functional imaging study of the effect of amblyopia on the human brain using positron emission tomography, and published on clinical optokinetic asymmetry in esotropia.
Dr. Demer was recruited in 1988 to the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where he rose to the rank of Chief of the Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus Division in the Jules Stein Eye Institute and Department of Ophthalmology, David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Demer now holds the Leonard Apt Professorship of Ophthalmology, and is also Professor of Neurology, Director of the Ocular Motility Clinical Laboratory, Co-director of the Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus Fellowship program, and committee chair of the EyeSTAR Training Program (Specialty Training and Advanced Research in Ophthalmology and Visual Science), a residency-PhD track. Dr. Demer is also a member of the Neuroscience and Bioengineering Interdepartmental Programs.