Professor Matthew Burton is the Director of the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). He holds a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship and leads a large international research group of clinicians and scientists, working to improve eye health in low and middle-income countries.
He is currently co-leading the Lancet Global Health Commission on Global Eye Health, which will report in October 2020.
Matthew is also the Director of the Commonwealth Eye Health Consortium, funded by the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. The Consortium supports public health and research capacity development, sub-specialist ophthalmology training, health systems strengthening and technology development for eye health professionals.
He is an Honorary Consultant Ophthalmologist in Cornea & External Eye Disease at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, where he specialises in the diagnosis and treatment of microbial keratitis.
Matthew qualified in medicine from Cambridge University. His post-graduate training was in Oxford and at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London. He joined the International Centre for Eye Health in 2000. He was based at the MRC Laboratories, The Gambia (2001-2003), whilst doing his PhD, for which he received the LSHTM’s Woodruff Medal. After the completion of specialist training he spent four years based at KCMC Hospital, Moshi, Tanzania (2008-2012), where he established new trachoma research programmes in Tanzania and Ethiopia, which was funded through a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship. Wellcome have continued to support Matthew’s trachoma research (2013-2018) through a Senior Research Fellowship in Clinical Science and more recently through a Collaborative Award (2017-2022). Recently his Wellcome Senior Research Fellowship was renewed for a further five years (2018-2023), for research on corneal infection in Uganda, Tanzania and Nepal.