Paul Courtright

Paul Courtright is a professor (adjunct) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, founder and current Chair of the Board for the Kilimanjaro Centre for Community Ophthalmology (www.kcco.net).  He grew up in the US, Iran, Taiwan, and Australia and, after his BA, served in the Peace Corps in South Korea as a leprosy worker. He completed his Masters (Johns Hopkins Univ) and Doctorate (UC Berkeley) in Public Health focusing on epidemiology and eye diseases.  For over 20 years he lived and worked in Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania establishing, with his wife, the KCCO in Moshi, Tanzania in 2001. He has published over 250 scientific articles, mostly in the area of public health ophthalmology.  He has received awards from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Premio Vision Mundi de Lucha Contra la Cuguera, and the Antonio Champalimaud Vision Award.  He has provided technical support on trachoma for Sightsavers for over 10 years. In 2020 he published Witnessing Gwangju, the first memoir by a foreigner who witnessed the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea in May 1980. He is married with two sons and currently lives in San Diego.