Professor Doctor Ingeborg Stalmans heads the Laboratory of Ophthalmology at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) as well as the Glaucoma unit of the University Hospitals in Leuven (UZ Leuven). She obtained her medical degree with greatest distinction in 1996 and, having received a scholarship from the Research Foundation – Flanders, combined her residency in Ophthalmology in Leuven with basic research in the laboratory of Professor Carmeliet and Professor Collen (1997–2002). The subject of her PhD was the role of VEGF in retinal angiogenesis and in the pathogenesis of DiGeorge syndrome. This work resulted in several high-impact papers such as Nature, Cell and PNAS, and was rewarded by the prestigious GlaxoSmith-Kline prize.
The current focus of her basic and clinical research work is medical glaucoma therapy and wound healing following glaucoma surgery, as well as corneal healing and retinopathies. In the past years she has published in Cell, Ophthalmology, Journal of Glaucoma, IOVS etc. Her work has been awarded by prizes from the Funds for Research in Ophthalmology (FRO) and the Pfizer Glaucoma Research Award. As a glaucoma specialist and researcher, she frequently lectures both nationally and internationally, including at ARVO, WGC, ISGS, EVER, EGS, ESCRS, SOE and ESASO. Within the European Glaucoma society, she is a member of the Executive Committee, the chairmen of the IT committee as well as co-chair of the program planning committee, the chairman of the Special Interest Group on Ocular Blood Flow and a steering member of the EGS Special Interest Group on Neuroprotection. She is currently also active as the Treasurer of the Belgian Ophthalmological Society as well as the Belgian Glaucoma Society, and is a member of the Steering committee and the Glaucoma Expert Committee of the European Vision Institute Clinical Research Network (EVICR.net). She is a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium.