17 2026 APACRS CERTIFIED EDUCATOR (A.C.E.) Skills transfer becomes progressively more crucial to providing quality eye care as the fields of cataract and refractive surgery continue to advance. The APACRS Certified Educator (A.C.E.) program was launched in 2002 to motivate ophthalmic surgeons to play a more active role in disseminating the latest advances and techniques to their colleagues. This year’s award is supported by Alcon and Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Thanapong Somkijrungroj graduated from Phramongkutklao College of Medicine, Bangkok, in 2004 and completed his Ophthalmology residency at Rajavithi Hospital. He joined Chulalongkorn University and Hospital in 2012 as Chief of the Uveitis Unit and completed a retina fellowship the same year. In 2014, he pursued advanced fellowships in Uveitis and Medical Cornea at the Francis I. Proctor Foundation, University of California, San Francisco. He founded the Chula-KKU-Proctor-UCSF (CKPU) meeting in 2016 and launched a uveitis fellowship program at Chulalongkorn University in 2017. Dr. Thanapong trains 2–3 retina fellows annually and focuses his research on imaging in uveitis and retina, diagnostic tests for uveitis, CMV keratouveitis, ocular Behçet disease, and other infectious uveitis. He leads innovative projects including intravitreal drug delivery devices and ophthalmic anesthesia injection models and manages complicated cataracts and complex retina diseases associated with intraocular inflammation. He received the Distinguished Service Award from the ACOM community in 2017 and the Best Paper of the Session Award at the 34th APACRS annual meeting in 2022. An active member of the Royal College of Ophthalmology of Thailand, Thai Retina Society, and Thailand Intraocular Inflammation and Uveitis Society, Dr. Thanapong currently serves as President of the Cataract and Refractive Surgery Society of Thailand. Dr. Xiangjia Zhu is a distinguished professor and senior consultant at Eye & ENT Hospital of Fudan University, where she serves as Head of Cataract and Refractive Lens Surgery and Vice Dean of the Eye Research Institute. A clinician-scientist, Dr. Zhu specializes in the management of highly myopic cataracts and refractive cataract surgery. She has led five national projects investigating the pathogenesis of highly myopic cataracts, including the prestigious NSFC Excellent Young Scientists Project. Dr. Zhu has authored 135 SCI-indexed publications, including two in Nature Communications (IF 15.7), one in Advanced Science (IF 14.1), and three in Cell Discovery (IF 12.5). Her team holds four authorized invention patents and eight utility model patents, with one successful technology transfer. Dr. Zhu has received numerous accolades, including the Cataract Research Award 2025 (NFER), First-class Prize of the Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Award, Huaxia Youth Medical Science and Technology Award, Wuzhou Women’s Science and Technology Award. Her video “Saving the Extreme High Myopia: Addition or subtraction?” was recognised at the 2024 Asia-Pacific Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (APACRS) Film Festival Award Ceremony. Thanapong SOMKIJRUNGROJ Thailand ZHU Xiangjia China
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