Director

M. Elizabeth Fini, PhD is a medical school professor and biomedical scientist, best known for her innovative contributions to our understanding of diseases of the eye. In 2002, she shared the Lewis Rudin Glaucoma Prize from the New York Academy of Medicine for discovery of a novel unifying mechanism for glaucoma pathogenesis. She has also made a significant impact as a teacher and mentor to young scientists, many of whom now hold leadership positions at institutions across the United States and the world.

Dr. Fini began her faculty career at Harvard Medical School. She moved to Tufts Medical Center with award of the Jules & Doris Stein Research to Prevent Blindness Professorship, and while there, founded the Tufts Center for Vision Research. Subsequently she was recruited to the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine to serve as the first Scientific Director of the Evelyn F. & William L. McKnight Vision Research Center and holder of the Walter G. Ross Chair in Ophthalmic Research.

Fini moved to USC in 2008, serving as research dean during a transformative five-year period in which the institution acquired its hospital and expanded its faculty and research programs. Currently she heads the IGM, where she is responsible for programmatic direction and planning, as well as oversight of the faculty and administration. In addition, she and her laboratory team conduct federally funded research with practical application to ocular surface disease, glaucoma, and prostate cancer. In her consulting time, she is engaged as an officer in a start-up biotechnology company, translating her research findings to the clinic.

A native of greater Boston, Fini earned her doctoral degree at Dartmouth College and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Dartmouth Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.