Brian Hofland

Brian F. Hofland, PhD, is the sixth president of Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB), a New York–based nonprofit that is the leading philanthropic source of grants for early-stage academic eye research in the United States. He was named president on January 9, 2013, and oversees the organization's strategic direction and operations, reporting to its Board of Trustees. Since its founding in 1960, RPB has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into vision research and was instrumental in the creation of the federal National Eye Institute.

Before joining RPB, Hofland built a career in aging-focused philanthropy and nonprofit leadership. He served as vice president of Strategic Collaboration at the National Council on Aging and held senior management positions at the AARP Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and The Retirement Research Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the founding chairman of Grantmakers In Aging, Inc., a membership organization of philanthropies working to improve the experience of aging.

Hofland holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in Health and Human Development from The Pennsylvania State University. Under his leadership, RPB has emphasized strategic collaboration across the vision-research field and has reworked and expanded its grant programs to meet the emerging needs of vision scientists.

• Funds early-career and early-stage vision research through non-dilutive grants to academic ophthalmology departments and individual investigators — the closest analogue to "seed" funding in his field.
• Portfolio of grant vehicles includes Unrestricted Grants and Challenge Grants to departments, Individual Investigator Grants, Career Development Awards (RPB's flagship, career-launching award for promising junior faculty), Career Advancement Awards, Physician-Scientist Awards, and the innovation-oriented Stein Innovation Awards.
• The Career Development Award has no set scientific focus and is open to any vision-research topic — the emphasis is on the researcher's demonstrated potential for independent research rather than a predetermined thesis; candidates must be nominated by their department chair and be at an RPB-supported department.
• Stated priority is impact and field-building: *"I am extremely gratified by our impact on the trajectory of vision research in the United States."* — Brian F. Hofland
• Selection favors institutions and investigators positioned to catalyze sight-saving science, with programs deliberately structured to help junior faculty transition to independent, NIH-funded (R01) careers.