Dr Steve Schallhorn is a board-certified ophthalmologist in private practice in San Diego, California, USA. He is Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of California, San Francisco, Chief Medical Officer for Carl Zeiss Meditec, and Chairman of the Optical Express Medical Advisory Board.

A former US Navy Captain and F-14 naval aviator, Dr Schallhorn served as a TOPGUN instructor before pursuing medicine. Following ophthalmology residency at the Naval Medical Center San Diego and fellowship training at the Doheny Eye Institute, he became the US Navy’s Refractive Surgery Program Manager and founded the Department of Defense refractive surgery program, now comprising more than 20 centres worldwide.

Internationally recognised for his research in refractive surgery safety, visual performance, and environmental physiology, Dr Schallhorn has advised the FDA and played a key role in the NASA approval of LASIK.