January Awards and Recognitions—2026

Women In Optometry regularly recognizes the awards and accomplishments of those in the profession and in their communities in the “Awards and Recognitions” series.

Have you received an award or acknowledgment for your contributions to optometry or your community? Send us a note.

Congratulations to all honorees.

Julie DeKinder, OD, FAAO, won the 2026 Thomas J. “Tommy” Pham Keratoconus Practitioner of the Year Award from the GP Lens Institute.

Christopher Lievens, OD, MS, PhD, FNAP, FAAO, was named Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Optometry, a Dove Press journal indexed in PubMed.

Optical Women’s Association Announces 2026 Award Honorees The award recipients will be honored at the OWA’s annual Champagne Breakfast on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, during International Vision Expo.
	Susy Yu, OD, Vision Services Administrator for Kaiser Permanente, will receive the Pleiades Award.
	Liz Friedfeld, Head of Business Development for ClearVision Optical, will receive the Pyxis Award honoree.
	Cathy Firman, Senior Director of Customer Success for GPN Technologies, will receive the Emerging Leader Award.
	Alessandra Senici, Executive Leader at EssilorLuxottica, will be the first recipient of the OWA’s new Polaris Award.

	Sheila Morrison, OD, MS, FAAO, FCCSO, of Mission Eye Care in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
	Heidi Pham-Murphy, OD; Thuy Phung, OD; Thomas Murphy, OD; John Baskett, OD; Roman Goals, OD; and Jennifer Fong, OD, a team at Eye Designs Optometry and Visions Optometry in the greater Sacramento area.
	Joshua Olson, OD, MA, of Colorado Eye Center/Sunrise Vision Care in Boulder, Colorado.
	Scott Samples, FLCSA, NCLEM, CPOT, of Dean McGee Eye Institute in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
	Susanna Tamkins, OD, of Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida.

Trevor Fosso, OD, was named the Minnesota Optometric Association Young OD of the Year.

Kimberly Friedman, OD, FAAO, won the E.C. Nurock Award by the New Jersey Society for Optometric Physicians.

Maureen Hanley, OD, ’81 and Guang-Ji Wang, OD ’92 won the New England College of Optometry 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award.

Alyssa Pack, OD, won the Outstanding Professional Rising Star Award from Chula Vista mayor John McCann.

Clint Prestwich, OD, was promoted to Assistant Director of Clinical Rotations at the Chicago College of Optometry.

Karen Carrasquillo, OD, PhD, FAAO, FSLS, FBCLA, received the 2026 Naomi “Jo” Svochak GP Practitioner of the Year Award from the GP Lens Institute (GPLI).

Dave Plevyak was appointed as Chief Insurance Officer at VSP Vision.

Nicola Zotta was appointed as President of Eyewear, Managing Director of Marchon and Marcolin at VSP Vision.

Victoria Hallberg was appointed as Senior Vice President of Sales at Zyloware and Kenmark.

Shelley Thunen was appointed as Chief Financial Officer at RxSight, Inc.

Walter M. Rosebrough, Jr., was appointed to the CooperCompanies Board of Directors.

Quinn Lyzun was appointed as President of Advancing Eyecare.

Mia Gee was appointed as Chief Operations Officer at Elevate Digital Optics.

Jeff Bassett was appointed as President of Opticote.

Kathleen Sherwin was appointed as President and CEO of Orbis International.

Victoria Hallberg was appointed as Senior Vice President of Sales at Zyloware and Kenmark.

Zeiss Vision Care was awarded the United Gold Seal of Excellence.

Vision To Learn was named the Nicholas Kristof 2025 Holiday Impact Prize honoree.

See previous Awards & Recognitions (previously Women in the News) from December 2025, October 2025 and September 2025.

To view more newsmakers stories from WO, click here.