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J. William Harbour, M.D., joined UT Southwestern as Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology in November 2021. Previously he was at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, where he served as Director of Ocular Oncology, Vice Chair for Translational Research at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Associate Director for Basic Science at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, and member of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute. He also served as a Professor of Ophthalmology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology. Dr. Harbour is the principal investigator of multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health designed to improve the testing and treatment of eye cancers. A major theme of his research is to elucidate the key genetic and epigenetic events associated with tumor progression and metastasis in uveal melanoma (UM) and retinoblastoma, the most common eye cancers in adults and children, respectively. His lab discovered a gene expression profile that predicts patient outcomes in UM that is now the industry standard. He has developed new surgical methods for intraocular biopsy, radioactive plaque surgery, and vitrectomy in eyes with intraocular tumors. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Texas A&M University and his medical degree from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. After residency at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia, he completed a fellowship in retinal surgery at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, and a fellowship in ocular oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. He then pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in cancer research at Washington University in St. Louis.