The Mary Jane O’Neill Fellowship in International Eye Banking was established in 2001 to provide medical or technical personnel from eye banks outside of the USA and Canada with the skills necessary to develop, operate, and maintain successful eye banks within their own countries, reducing blindness due to corneal disease or injury.
2024 Fellowship Information
The 2024 Mary Jane O’Neill Fellowship will bring an individual to the United States for a 2 week period during May/June 2024 to intern at an EBAA member host eye bank and attend the EBAA Annual Meeting, June 5-8, 2024, in Kansas City, Missouri. Once a Fellow is selected, the EBAA will work with the eye bank and the Fellow to determine the actual dates of the program.
EBAA and The Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration in New York City established this fellowship to honor Mary Jane O’Neill, The Eye-Bank’s Executive Director from 1980 to 2000. During her long history in eye banking, Ms. O’Neill was a forward thinking visionary and championed international outreach, devoting significant efforts to establish and improve eye-banking services worldwide.
EBAA thanks Advancing Sight Network for generously offering to host the 2024 Fellow.
The application period has closed.
Previous Mary Jane O’Neill Fellow
Elisabeth Cittadino, MD
Eye Bank Technical Director
Hospital Oftalmológico Santa Lucía Eye Bank –
Health Secretary Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
Elisabeth interned for one week at Lions World Vision Institute in Tampa, Florida followed by attending the 2023 Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas. Her personal account can be found below.
“I want to thank EBAA and The Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration for awarding me the Mary Jane O’Neill Fellowship in International Eye Banking. Thanks also to Lions World Vision Institute for kindly hosting me.
After a warm welcome, I received specific training in preparation of corneal tissue for DSAEK, as well as a detailed summary of the Eye Bank’s other activities. In particular, I want to express my appreciation to the program’s organizers for their willingness to answer my questions. At the annual meeting I was also able to meet and share personal experiences with colleagues from different eye banks, to learn about new developments in eye banking and to meet the authors of the papers that were presented.
I returned to Argentina with lots of study materials, photographs and video, as well as ideas or highlights that I will be able to apply so as to continue improving and sharing what I learned in Buenos Aires.”