Ralph C. Eagle Jr., MD

Ralph C. Eagle, Jr., MD is Chief of the Ophthalmic Pathology Department at Wills Eye Hospital and Professor of Ophthalmology and Pathology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1970, interned at Temple University Hospital and was an ophthalmology resident in Dr. Harold G. Scheie’s program at Penn. Ophthalmic Pathology training included fellowships with Dr. Myron Yanoff at Penn and a two year NEI fellowship at the AFIP with Lorenz Zimmerman and Ramon Font. He was certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology in 1976. He was named the Noel T. and Sara L. Simmonds Professor of Ophthalmic Pathology at Wills in 1999.

Research interests include the histopathologic characterization of ocular disease using light and electron microscopy. He was first author on the paper that characterized the Iridocorneal Endothelial (ICE) Syndrome) and introduced that terminology. He also showed that the RPE abnormalities in Stargardt's disease were caused by the massive accumulation of abnormal lipofuscin pigment. His AOS thesis investigated iris pigmentation and pigmented lesions of the iris. During the past three decades, he has collaborated closely with Jerry and Carol Shields of the Wills Eye Hospital's Oncology Service.

Dr. Eagle’s honors include the AOS, the Zimmerman Medal of the AAOOP, the Macula Society’s W. Richard Green Lecture, the ISOP’s inaugural Gordon K. Klintworth Lecture and the ISOO’s Henry B. Stallard Medal and Lecture. He has served as President of the AAOP and was a member of Executive Board of the American Registry of Pathology. He is Director of CME and chairs the IRB at Wills. A dedicated teacher, he has taught eye pathology to hundreds of ophthalmology residents and has lectured on five continents. He directs the eye pathology section of the Lancaster Course and is sole author and illustrator of a popular atlas and textbook of Eye Pathology, now in its third edition. An avid photographer, he is noted for the quality of his gross photos and photomicrographs of eye disease. Avocations include travel, art, photography and fossils. He has served as Archivist-Photographer of the AOS since 1996.