Ira G. Ross Eye Institute

The home of the University at Buffalo's Ira G. Ross Eye Institute is a collaboration of the Department of Ophthalmology in UB's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, the Elizabeth Pierce Olmsted, M.D., Center for the Visually Impaired and University Ophthalmology Services.

The loss of vision can happen due to health issues, disease or injury. Many of these issues go beyond what can be addressed during the course of routine ophthalmic care. That’s why over 20,000 patients come to The Ira G. Ross Eye Institute for their eye care every year.  With each physician they bring in from the best universities and hospitals in the world, they gain a better understanding of the complex system that defines a patients eyesight. The physicians are all surgeons, providing both medical and surgical management of routine and complex eye disorders.

The institute would not have been possible without the vision and philanthropic leadership of Elizabeth Pierce Olmsted Ross, M.D., a 1939 graduate of UB's School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, who died in September. An ophthalmologist and nationally renowned champion for the blind and visually impaired, she offered a $3 million challenge grant to UB in 2003 to establish the Ira G. Ross Eye Institute, and subsequently followed up with an additional $1 million challenge grant. Olmsted Ross provided a major gift to the Blind Association of Western New York in 1999 to renovate its facility, which now bears her name.

The institute is named in honor of her late husband, Ira G. Ross, who was an innovative scientist and engineer responsible for establishing aerodynamic and in-flight simulation techniques that still are used in testing commercial and military aircraft. He was head of Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, which became Calspan and is now Veridian.