{"id":7086,"date":"2026-06-20T21:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T04:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/?p=7086"},"modified":"2026-06-21T01:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T08:35:15","slug":"from-nola-to-cole-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2026\/06\/20\/from-nola-to-cole-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"From NOLA to Cole Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>I had the honor of being invited to the ADA\u00a0conference<\/a> this year in New Orleans to talk about our AI-based diabetic eye screening program at UCD. My initial impression was that endocrinologists are a lot more laid back, with fewer talks, fewer posters, and fewer industry booths, despite some feisty drama<\/a> ahead of my arrival. Having sleep-deprived myself last week preparing a K12<\/a> grant and planning our upcoming trips to Paris, Montreal, and Quito, I slept well aboard my 5 a.m. flight. A first-class upgrade, however, earned me a splash of breakfast frittata tomato sauce onto my only shirt. Unfazed, I headed straight to Mother\u2019s<\/a> on arrival for my shrimp-oyster poboy and crawfish etouffee, then checked into the hotel<\/a> to scrub my shirt, toss it into a self-serve dryer, and practice my bicep curls at the gym while waiting. For dinner, I nabbed a bar seat at Emeril\u2019s<\/a> to savor their seafood gumbo and BBQ shrimp. Despite missing the 2-Michelin star tasting menu from the 22-year-old son<\/a> of the culinary magnate who now runs the kitchen, I found both dishes to be well prepared, although not matching the divine level of Mr. B\u2019s<\/a>. Despite my fear of not knowing anyone at the ADA or NOLA, I was pleasantly surprised by my CUTI<\/a> colleagues who came to talk, and a text from my mentee Tanvi who is now a resident at LSU. We shared stories over fried chicken from Brother’s Food Mart<\/a>, followed by beignets and an iced cafe au lait at the pleasantly less-crowded Caf\u00e9 du Monde<\/a> location in City Park<\/a> before my flight back. Back home, I celebrated my grad students completing their qualifying exams, and was off again to Cleveland for my invited talk at the Cole Eye Institute<\/a>. I was delighted to join my ex-trainees Sophie and Mini for Mediterranean mezze at Zhug<\/a>, and even more touched by Mini’s introduction of my research seminar on monkey research. My day-long schedule kept me busy meeting old friends and new researchers before dinner at L’Albatros<\/a>. The French cuisine got me excited for our upcoming family trip to Paris, as I returned home to enjoy some quality family time. We repotted our crape myrtle bonsai, completed our last Harry Potter<\/a> movie, and gathered with cousin Pamela’s family to celebrate her father’s life with banquet-style Chinese dinner<\/a> before finishing our packing.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had the honor of being invited to the ADA\u00a0conference this year in New Orleans to talk about our AI-based diabetic eye screening program at UCD. My initial impression was that endocrinologists are a lot more laid back, with fewer … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7086"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7103,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7086\/revisions\/7103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}