Currently serving as treasurer, Joan Seidel has been on the board of directors of The Discovery Eye Foundation for more than two decades. The Los Angeles transplant — she grew up in Brooklyn — first got involved with DEF, because her husband, Arnold, has keratoconus.
“I heard stories of his mother being called in to his kindergarten, because he couldn’t see the board. It’s something he’s dealt with his entire life,” Seidel says, adding he has not let it have a negative impact on any aspect of his personal or professional life. He has had two successful corneal transplants, and since his second transplant, she says, “He’s been able to read for pleasure, not just read what he has to read. It’s a wonderful thing.” The couple works together in the family business, a stock brokerage, and travels extensively with their children and grandchildren. Additionally, they are active with the Los Angeles Opera, Hebrew Union College, American Technion Society, Jewish Home for the Aging and Friends of the Observatory (Griffith Park).
Seidel first became involved with DEF after Arnold started seeing DEF Medical Director Dr. Tony Nesburn, who performed the first of his two transplants. “We are grateful patients,” she says. She has stayed involved for so long largely due to the “great accomplishments and research of the organization. Selfishly, my husband has benefited from it, and Cris [Kenney, DEF’s research director] is working on all kinds of other implications and other eye diseases. It’s nice to be part of something that is really accomplishing things and showing such potential great success.
“Government funding has been cut. The NIH is not giving the kind of money scientists need. Research takes time; you have to have the patience and the ability to move forward. When they discover one facet of eye problems, very often they discover other things. Giving to DEF is a way to encourage solutions.”