Randall J Olson, MD

Randall J Olson, MD, is a Distinguished Professor emeritus at the University of Utah, and former Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, and CEO of the John A. Moran Eye Center.

Specializing in external eye diseases and anterior segment disorders, Dr. Olson is a world-renowned expert in cataract surgery complications and intraocular lens (IOL) surgery. He served as the longest-serving chair of any academic ophthalmology department in the country. In 2024, The Ophthalmologist magazine named Dr. Olson on its annual Power List of the 100 most influential people in ophthalmology worldwide.

Dr. Olson earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Utah (BA ’70, MD ’73) and completed his residency at the University of California Los Angeles Jules Stein Eye Institute in 1977. He went on to complete fellowships in cornea and external disease at the University of Florida in Gainesville and at the Louisiana State University Eye Center in New Orleans, where he joined the faculty in 1977 as Director of Corneal Services.

Dr. Olson joined the University of Utah faculty in 1979 as an Associate Professor and Division Chief when ophthalmology was a one-person operation and part of the Department of Surgery. In 1982, the division gained departmental status, and Dr. Olson took the helm as its chair.

In 1986, Dr. Olson proposed the construction of an eye center at the University. Through generous philanthropy, most notably from John A. Moran, the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences moved into the first John A. Moran Eye Center in 1993—an 82,000-square-foot facility dedicated to research, teaching, community outreach, and cutting-edge ophthalmic care. When the center outgrew the space, Dr. Olson led a drive to build a new eye center. Groundbreaking for the new John A. Moran Eye Center took place in 2004, and the new facility held its grand opening in August 2006.

Today, the 210,000-square-foot Moran Eye Center is the largest eye care and vision research center in the Mountain West. Moran houses more than 20 research labs and centers, and with 11 satellite clinics, hosts about 188,000 patient visits and over 10,000 surgeries annually. U.S. News & World Report ranked the Moran Eye Center as the No. 9 eye center nationwide on its 2025-2026 Best Hospitals for Ophthalmology report. Moran is known in particular for its retinal physiology research, basic genetics research, complications of cataract surgery research, and global ophthalmology program.

Unwavering in his optimism for the future, Dr. Olson has constantly worked to reinvent ophthalmology through technology, research, and personalized medicine. He has taken on—and solved—some of the field’s biggest challenges.

Dr. Olson established the Center for Intraocular Research to fund studies on IOL design, materials, and complications in 1982, a time when outcomes using the new devices were unacceptably poor, and both academic and the National Institutes of Health had declined to fund IOL research. The author of more than 300 publications and a worldwide lecturer, Dr. Olson has conducted landmark research that has improved the design of IOLs and related surgical techniques. The center continues to vet IOL design and materials for companies worldwide and analyzes IOL-related complications to improve care.

Dr. Olson established the Center for Translational Medicine (CTM) in 2009 to reduce costs while speeding up drug development. As a synergistic model of partnerships between university departments, international academic collaborators, and private industry, the CTM allows multiple phases of the drug discovery process to run simultaneously, moving discoveries more quickly and efficiently into clinical trials. With the creation of the CTM, now known as the Sharon Eccles Steele Center for Translational Medicine, the University recognized the Vision Research Institute at the University of Utah as one of only three Health Sciences Institutes.

Under Dr. Olson’s leadership, the Moran Eye Center also became the premier institute for ophthalmology outreach in the United States. Training ophthalmologists in the developing world to create sustainable eye care systems, the Moran Eye Center has worked in more than 20 countries and is a North American academic partner of Aravind Eye Care System.

Dr. Olson has served as President of the Association of University Professors in Ophthalmology and earned many of his field’s highest honors. These include the 2012 American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Binkhorst Medal, the 2014 University of Utah Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence, the 2014 American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) Kelman Award, the 2015 AAO Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2016 International Intra-Ocular Implant Club Jan Worst Medal. In 2019, Dr. Olson received the Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology. In 2021, the University of Utah awarded him the rank of Distinguished Professor.

Dr. Olson is most proud of his incredible wife, Ruth, their five amazing children, and grandchildren. In his spare time, he loves the outdoors, including hiking, backpacking, and fly fishing—especially with his grandkids.