Assoc Prof Constantinos Petsoglou

A.Prof Constantinos Petsoglou is a Sydney-based cornea and anterior segment surgeon who has spent over two decades restoring sight, training the next generation of ophthalmologists and rebuilding the systems behind eye donation in New South Wales.

He trained at the University of Sydney, graduating with the University Medal, before completing a Cornea and Anterior Segment Fellowship at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London under John Dart and Linda Ficker. He returned to Sydney as a Staff Specialist in the Cornea Unit at Sydney Eye Hospital, a role he has held since 2003, and now also holds an Associate Professorship at the University of Sydney’s Save Sight Institute.

As Associate Medical Director (Clinical) of the NSW Tissue Bank since 2018, Constantinos has helped transform how the state sources and delivers donated eye tissue. Under his watch, waitlists have dropped from years to months, organ culture storage extended tissue viability from a week to four, and Sydney’s amniotic membrane and skin donation programmes went from concept to accredited service, the latter proving vital in the medical response to the White Island volcanic eruption.

Teaching runs through everything he does. As Director of Training for the Sydney Eye Hospital Network, he oversees educational standards for fifty advanced trainees across four states. He designed and still coordinates postgraduate units in the Masters of Medicine (Ophthalmic Sciences), Masters of International Ophthalmology and Masters of Medicine (Cataract and Refractive Surgery), and has supervised over sixty postgraduate research projects along the way. His commitment to skills-based training led him to help build the Australian and New Zealand Microsurgical Skills Course, now a fixture of RANZCO’s advanced training programme.

His research spans corneal endothelial cell biology, bioengineering and acanthamoeba keratitis, with more than 90 peer-reviewed publications and an H-index of 16. He has attracted competitive funding from the MRFF, NHMRC and various foundations, and sits on ethics committees and advisory boards spanning eye banking, corneal graft registries and clinical trials.

Beyond Sydney, Constantinos has spent nearly a decade delivering surgical care and training in Darwin, Mandalay and Hanoi, and has mentored dozens of international ophthalmology fellows who now practise across Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. His work has been recognised with the RANZCO Trainer of Excellence Award, the Cornea Society’s Troutman Prize and, most recently, the Asia-Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology’s Distinguished Service Award in 2026.

He remains an active member of RANZCO’s Qualifications and Education Committee and Selection Board, a Fellow of the College, and a regular reviewer for journals including the British Journal of Ophthalmology and Cornea.