Pediatric ophthalmologist Terri L. Young, M.D., has researched the molecular genetics of myopia to help find better treatments for eye disorders. She has been an associate professor of ophthalmology and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Ophthalmic Genetics Research Center of the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania.
Born in Sacramento, California, in 1959, Terri Young graduated with highest honors in biochemistry and sociology from Bowdoin College, in Maine, in 1981. At Harvard Medical School she was named the Stanley J. Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Fellow and received her doctor of medicine degree in 1986. Dr. Young began postdoctoral training in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston and later served as a resident in ophthalmology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. From 1990 through 1992 she was a fellow in pediatric ophthalmology, strabismus, and adult motility disorders at the University of Pennsylvania Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Scheie Eye Institute, and served two months as an extern in strabismus and adult motility disorders at the University of Iowa.
Dr. Young’s first faculty appointment was as a clinical instructor of ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania. She went on to appointments as an instructor of neurobiology and instructor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and assistant professorships of ophthalmology and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Young became a tenured professor of ophthalmology and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota in 1998. In 2001 she returned to Philadelphia as associate professor of ophthalmology and pediatrics in the departments of Ophthalmology and Pediatrics (Genetics) at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also director of Ophthalmic Genetics Research Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Dr. Young received the Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Development Award from 1992 through 1997 and became a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus in 1998. That same year she received the American Academy of Ophthalmology Honor Award and in 2002, she received the American Association of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus Honor Award.