Dr Yan is no stranger to combining eye health and technology, winning the Google Impact Challenge in 2016 with Professor Mingguang He. Together they created Vision@Home, an evidence-based software algorithm that provides a method for patients to test their eyesight anywhere there is access to a smart device and its built-in camera.

William is passionate about improving patient healthcare access and outcomes using technology and was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to further advance his interests in ophthalmology, healthcare innovation and health informatics. The Scholarship will provide full funding for a degree program of choice as well as researcher support for the Ophthalmic Innovation Fellowship at Stanford University.

“There is a growing intersection between healthcare, smart devices and software and a lot of opportunities for collaboration,” he said.

“For instance, as we move towards electronic medical records, there is a wealth of data points that will become available to researchers and clinicians. Understanding how to make sense of that data and use it to help drive personalised, and better informed clinical decision-making is one compelling reason to study health informatics.

Dr Yan recently completed his Masters thesis which examined the global socioeconomics of vision impairment and cataract surgery. Dr Yan was supervised by CERA’s Prof Minguang He, A/Prof Peter van Wijngaarden and Prof Jonathan Crowston.