Rate My Professor Justine Smith

Professor Justine Smith is a Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor and Strategic Professor in Eye and Vision Health in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University. She serves as Senior Consultant Ophthalmologist at Flinders Medical Centre and Co-Director of the Eye and Vision Flagship research program at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute. Smith completed her PhD (Medical) at Flinders University in 1999 under the supervision of Emeritus Professor Keryn A. Williams. After her doctorate, she undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, advancing to full professor there. She also worked as a clinician at the National Eye Centre in Singapore before returning to Flinders in 2013 to establish a research program as Strategic Professor of Eye and Vision Health. Internationally recognised as an expert in uveitis—inflammation of the eye—her research encompasses infections by parasites and viruses as well as ocular cancers. Key discoveries from her laboratory include mechanisms of infectious uveitis, and her clinical research has supported the use of biologic drugs to reduce vision loss from non-infectious uveitis. She leads the Uveitis Infections research group at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute.

Smith has produced over 340 research outputs, including recent publications such as 'Relentless placoid chorioretinitis' (Survey of Ophthalmology, 2026), 'Total RNA and MicroRNA Transcriptomic Responses of Human Retinal Müller Glial Cells to Infection with Toxoplasma gondii Tachyzoites' (Ophthalmology Science, 2026), 'Presenting Clinical Features of Vitreoretinal Lymphoma' (Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, 2026), and 'Molecular responses of human retinal pigment epithelial cells to ebolavirus VP24' (Molecular Vision, 2026). Her leadership extends to chairing the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis, serving on the executive of the International Uveitis Study Group, and the board of the American Uveitis Society. She was Editor-in-Chief of Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology from 2020 to 2023—the first woman to lead a Q1 ophthalmology journal—and President of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology from 2013 to 2014. Major awards include Member of the Order of Australia (2023) for service to ophthalmology, the Joanne Angle Service Award (2024) from ARVO, Flinders University Convocation Medal (2022), Superstar of STEM by Science and Technology Australia, and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. Smith is a strong advocate for women in science, having established international mentoring programs and led efforts like the global vitreoretinal lymphoma registry launched in 2021 and the International Ocular Toxoplasmosis Study Group.