Luxme Hariharan

Dr. Luxme Hariharan most recently served as Chief of Ophthalmology and Chief Population Health Officer at Dayton Children’s Hospital with expertise in childhood blindness prevention both locally and abroad. Prior to this she practiced as a Pediatric Ophthalmologist at Nicklaus Children’s hospital and was appointed as a Board Member of the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Foundation in Miami, Florida. As an accomplished global researcher and child health advocate, Hariharan has a passion for international health policy that is deeply rooted in her own background. Born in Hyderabad, India, she grew up in Nairobi, Kenya; Dayton, Ohio, Iowa City, Iowa; and eventually, Madison, Wisconsin. As part of University of Wisconsin’s competitive medical scholar program, she majored in Spanish & Caribbean studies and biology, and during her senior year, she studied abroad in the Dominican Republic and Haiti to research childhood malnutrition. She completed a Pediatric Ophthalmology fellowship at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, FL and an additional fellowship in Pediatric Cornea, Cataract and Glaucoma and International health at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA).  Her Ophthalmology residency was completed at the University of Pennsylvania Scheie Eye Institute in Philadelphia, PA and she earned her preliminary year in Pediatrics at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, NY. She also holds a Masters of Public Health degree emphasizing global and child health policy from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to the pandemic and Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, she worked at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland to help control and prevent avoidable blindness worldwide. She has effectively implemented and scaled childhood blindness prevention programs and policies in India, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, and Niger in collaboration with multiple stakeholders including governments, non-profits, private sector and academia organizations. Dr. Hariharan is fluent in English, Spanish, and Tamil and conversant in French and Hindi. Her life’s mission is to make sure that every child no matter where they are born has the opportunity to develop his or her full visual potential and beyond.