Liliana Werner, MD, PhD, has been named the John A. Moran Eye Center’s inaugural Vice-Chair for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). As a key part of Moran’s senior management team, Werner will lead a range of efforts, including a top goal of increasing diversity in faculty and student ranks.
"When I moved to Salt Lake City to join the Moran Eye Center faculty in 2002, feeling welcomed, appreciated, and respected in my identity as a woman, Latina, and Brazilian immigrant was vitally important to me," Werner said. "We do not take for granted that all potential candidates and newly recruited faculty, staff, and trainees yearn for the same feeling, especially those from historically excluded communities."
Werner co-directs the world-renowned Intermountain Ocular Research Center based at Moran, vetting new intraocular lens technology and conducting groundbreaking research on related complications. She lectures worldwide and recently became the new U.S. associate editor of the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.
As part of her new position, Werner will serve as chair of a Moran committee with faculty, staff, and student representatives to help guide EDI initiatives.
"I want this to be the model program for the country with results our only signs of success," Moran CEO Randall J Olson, MD, said in announcing the leadership position.