Dr. Soosan Jacob, Director and Chief, Dr. Agarwal’s Refractive and Cornea Foundation and Senior Consultant, Cataract and Glaucoma Services at Dr. Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Chennai, India is a noted surgeon, academician and well-respected innovator. She is President of the International Society of Refractive Surgery, Associate editor Journal of Refractive Surgery, Section editor EyeNet (AAO) and editorial board member of many peer reviewed journals. She is in the Top Ten Power List in Cataract and Refractive Surgery 2025, among three most influential female figures in ophthalmology and ranked 17th in Top 100 Most Influential Ophthalmologists (Power List 2024), listed multiple times in Top 100 most influential people in Ophthalmology and as key opinion leader as well as among the top 2 percentile scientists consecutively in Stanford’s 2021-2026 lists. A two-time winner of the ASCRS Golden Apple award, ASCRS Top-Gun Instructor award, John Henahan award, JRS Waring medal, Innovator’s award from Connecticut Society of Eye Physicians, ISRS Kritzinger award and numerous other international awards and named orations.
Her innovations include CAIRS for keratoconus; Contact lens Assisted CXL (CACXL) for thin corneas; PrEsbyopicAllogenic Refractive Lenticule (PEARL) inlay for presbyopia; Glued capsular hook for subluxated cataracts; Stab Incision Glaucoma Surgery (SIGS), Air-pump assisted Pre-Descemet’s Endothelial Keratoplasty and Endo-illuminator assisted Descemet’s Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty (E-DMEK); host Descemetic scaffolding; classification of Descemet’s detachments into rhegmatogenous, tractional, bullous and complex with treatment algorithm, Relaxing Descemetotomy; Turnaround technique for Intacs; Glued Endo-Capsular Ring, Anterior segment transplantation, supra-brow single stab incision ptosis surgery, sequential segmental terminal lenticular side cut dissection and white ring sign for SMILE, SMILE lenticule assisted dermoid excision and others. Her educational YouTube channel is amongst the top-most heavily subscribed Ophthalmic YouTube channels.
She has authored more than 130 peer reviewed publications, more than 200 chapters in 40 textbooks and is editor for 17 Ophthalmology textbooks.