Akshar Abbott, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A.

Akshar Abbott is a board-certified ophthalmologist and medical retina specialist, innovator, and nationally-recognized teleophthalmology expert. He most recently served in the Veterans Health Administration, where he drove the development and deployment of new teleophthalmology care programs providing critically-needed retinal subspecialty care to Veterans living in rural communities. His work has also included mapping gaps in access to ophthalmic subspecialty care in rural America and providing mobile eye care to unhoused Veterans in the Upper Midwest. He additionally has supported health innovation at the local and national level as a builder, mentor, and evaluator, receiving multiple innovation grants, leading the Community for Innovation in Vision Care and serving as a national VHA Entrepreneur-In-Residence. Committed to developing the next generation of changemakers in health, he previously served as faculty for the MIT Catalyst Program and a fellowship mentor for the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship.

Raised in West Virginia, he earned his MD from the University of Pittsburgh and completed his ophthalmology training at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dr. Abbott also completed fellowship training in medical retina at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Abbott is a Fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. He earned an MPH in Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an MBA from the Yale School of Management, where he was a Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellow. Dr. Abbott has received numerous national honors, including being previously named a John R. Lewis Fellow and National Academy of Medicine Scholar in Diagnostic Excellence.

Dr. Abbott is passionate about leveraging emerging technology to expand access to healthcare for all Americans, no matter who they are or where they live.