For the past 22 years, Peter J. McDonnell, M.D., has held the title of the William Holland Wilmer Professor of Ophthalmology — a title that has been held by each of the five individuals who succeeded Dr. Wilmer as chairpersons of the Department of Ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Now, thanks to a generous gift by Wilmer alumnus Alan Norton and his wife, Marlene, to that title will be added the Alan and Marlene Norton Director of the Wilmer Eye Institute.

The endowed directorship will provide Wilmer’s directors in perpetuity with a source of funds to support junior faculty as they launch their careers, as well as to address other critical needs of Wilmer’s teaching, research and patient care missions.

Norton, who completed his residency at Wilmer in 1972, spent two years with the National Institutes of Health, where he conducted research on the electrophysiology of the retina and published more than a dozen research articles in peer-reviewed journals.

He served as a visiting faculty member at the Stein Eye Institute at UCLA for more than 20 years. He also had his own ophthalmology practice and served as a consultant to three hospitals in his subspecialty of retinal diseases.

This extraordinary gift comes as Wilmer celebrates its centennial and on the heels of a number of substantial contributions to Wilmer by many of its alumni.

“This support will help ensure that our trainees, currently and in the future, will have an experience at Wilmer that is second to none and will continue our institute’s tradition of training the future leaders of our field,” says McDonnell. “I know I speak for all of us at Wilmer, for those who will lead our institute in its second century and for the young people who will benefit from this wonderful gift, when I offer my most sincere appreciation to Alan and Marlene Norton.”