ME Hartnett, MD

Mary Elizabeth Hartnett, MD, holds the Calvin S. and JeNeal N. Hatch Presidential Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Utah departments of Neurobiology, Anatomy, and Pediatrics. Dr. Hartnett is the founder and director of Pediatric Retina at the John A. Moran Eye Center and principal investigator of the Retinal Angiogenesis Laboratory.

As director of Moran’s Pediatric Retina Center, Dr. Hartnett is one of a few pediatric retina specialists internationally trained to diagnose and treat pediatric retina disorders, which disrupt the healthy development of the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. There are dozens of conditions that cause retinal blindness in infants and children, but most are rare. She is one of only a handful of pediatric retina specialists in the United States offering complete care for these challenging conditions. She also practices as a vitreoretinal surgeon, providing treatment to patients throughout the Mountain West. She performs surgery at both the Moran Eye Center and Primary Children’s Hospital.

Her mission is to deliver the best possible care and education while conducting critical research to make future advances in pediatric retina care.

She created the first-ever academic textbook on the subject, Pediatric Retina, currently in the second edition, which has proven to be an invaluable resource for residents and ophthalmologists internationally. She is a director of the Advances in Pediatric Retina meeting held every two years, most recently in 2019 at the University of Utah, serving to provide training in established and new methods to manage pediatric retinal conditions and to incite collaborations in research in pediatric retina.

Dr. Hartnett has received numerous awards, including the Physician-Scientist Merit Award from Research to Prevent Blindness; the Honorary Lecture Award and Scientific Contribution Award from Women in Ophthalmology; the Macula Society’s Paul Henkind Award and Arnall Patz Medal; the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology’s (ARVO) Weisenfeld Award; and the Paul Kayser/RRF Global Award. She is an ARVO Gold Fellow.