Michael Abramoff, MD, PhD, FARVO, of the University of Iowa, will be visiting the University of Wisconsin—Madison campus this October to deliver the 2026 Matthew D. Davis, MD Lecture on Clinical Research. His talk is entitled “Who Would Have Thought? The Wisconsin Reading Center’s Incredible Reach: Autonomous AI and Imaging Research.”
Dr. Abramoff is a professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and the Robert C. Watzke Professor in Retina Research at the University of Iowa. He earned his PhD in Biomedical Imaging from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the RIKEN Neural Networks Research Laboratory in Japan.
Dr. Abramoff has been a leader in developing an ethical foundation for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine as a means of improving the affordability and quality of healthcare. His research interests include low-cost imaging and cameras, patient-centered retinal analysis, and healthcare economics. He is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Fellow and Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Gold Fellow, with numerous other honors and awards to his name.
“Dr. Abramoff led the development of the first autonomous AI diagnostic system to receive authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in 2018,” said Amitha Domalpally, MD, PhD, director of the Wisconsin Reading Center. “His expertise in machine learning and image analysis is invaluable.”
The autonomous AI system, which is used to diagnose diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema, is now part of Americans with Diabetes Association’s Standard Diabetes Care.
Dr. Abramoff established the Collaborative Community on Ophthalmic Innovation, a consortium comprised of Food and Drug Administration officials, ophthalmological leaders, patients, and industry technologists. Dr. Abramoff brought this consortium together to foster dialogue about the future of ophthalmology and the evolving needs of professionals in the field, including the ethical integration of AI into medicine.
“The Wisconsin Reading Center has collaborated with Dr. Abramoff for many years,” said Dr. Domalpally. “He has laid the groundwork for so much work in AI validation and innovation, and we’re very excited to invite him to speak with us.”
The lecture will be on Friday, October 16, 2026, from 7 – 8 A.M. CDT. It will be held both in-person, at the Health Sciences Learning Center Room 1335, and virtually, on Zoom.
About the Matthew D. Davis, MD Lecture
Held annually, the lecture honors Matthew D. Davis, MD, chair of ophthalmology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison from 1970 to 1986. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Davis is credited with obtaining full independent department status for ophthalmology in 1970, expanding fellowship-trained faculty to include pediatrics and cornea specialists, and adding nine additional clinical faculty and two basic science researchers to the staff. These faculty were instrumental in establishing the base for the future of the department in both clinical and scientific leadership.
A pioneering retina subspecialist, Dr. Davis chaired the first National Eye Institute-funded clinical trial on photocoagulation for diabetic retinopathy—work that set the standard for ophthalmic research. In 1970, Dr. Davis established the Fundus Photograph Reading Center, now the Wisconsin Reading Center, which remains a global leader for the evaluation of fundus images collected in clinical trials.