• Board Certi6ed by the American Board of Ophthalmology
• Jilin University
  Changchun, China
  M.Sc. and M.D. Degree
• Karolinska Instute
  Stockholm, Sweden
  Ph.D. Degree
• University of Louisville
  Louisville, KY - Ophthalmology Residency
• Emory University
  Atlanta, GA - Glaucoma Fellowship
• American Academy of Ophthalmology - Member
• American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery - Member
• Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology - Member
• Has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and received awards from National Eye Institute, American Federation for Aging Research, and many international organizations.
• Joined Marietta Eye Clinic in 2009
• Specialist in Complex Glaucoma Diagnosis and Management, Laser Treatment for Glaucoma, Trabeculectomy, Aqueous Shunt, Small-Incision Cataract Surgery, and Combined Cataract and Glaucoma Surgery
• Fluent in English, Chinese, and Korean
• Enjoys traveling and snow skiing

If you were to see her running barefoot in the grass chasing after an unruly beagle named Copper, you might underestimate the impressive accomplishments of Dr. Shunai Jiang. And while entrusting your eyes to her skilled hands, you aren’t likely to guess how hard she once labored with those same hands.

Born into a Korean family but raised in China during the Cultural Revolution, the young Dr. Jiang spent her formative years harvesting crops in the open fields and carrying bricks to the masons who ordered her around. But while Mao Zedong intended for the young girl to fall in with China’s classless society, she was listening instead to a more trusted advisor - her father.

“You should have big dreams,” he told her. “You can do anything if you apply yourself.” It was her father who encouraged her to break from tradition and become the person she wanted to be.

“I always enjoyed my father’s support. He didn’t want me to limit my options; he wanted me to pursue whatever I wanted to do.”

Finally able to attend classes which offered a traditional education at the age of thirteen, Dr. Jiang plunged into her studies and exceeded everyone’s expectations. After completing only three years of formal education, she applied and was accepted into medical school. While all her friends did what the Communist Party of China expected of them, Dr. Jiang, against the odds, spent five years in medical school. She emerged as a physician at the age of twenty-one.

Knowing that cataracts were the leading cause of blindness in China, Dr. Jiang wanted to continue her medical education and specialize in Ophthalmology. “I always marveled when I heard stories of people having their vision restored after cataract surgery,” she says. But without the necessary connections that made it possible to enter the most respected field of medicine in China, she was unable to pursue that dream.

Instead, she obtained a Masters Degree in Immunology and worked in Beijing for two years before deciding to go abroad in pursuit of a Ph.D. in Immunotoxicology. She attended the Karolinska Institute, one of the world’s most respected centers for medical training and research and home of the Nobel Prize of Medicine Committee. Five years later, she received a hard-earned Ph.D.

Not yet satisfied with her medical knowledge, Dr. Jiang made her way to the USA so that she could research age-related eye diseases at Emory University.

“I soon realized that in America opportunities are available to anyone willing to work hard, and I was accustomed to working hard. I thought to myself, here I can become an Ophthalmologist!”

And still her father was there for her. Dr. Jiang’s parents moved to live in the US for four years to help raise their young grandson while Dr. Jiang studied Ophthalmology.

Striving to spend as much time with her son as she could, Dr. Jiang learned to combine work and play. More than once, she brought home a pig’s eye to teach her son how to dissect and identify the structures of the eye.

After following a long path around the globe, Dr. Jiang is finally in practice as a board certified ophthalmologist. Specializing in glaucoma and cataract surgery, she has experienced since then the profound difference she makes in people’s lives as an ophthalmologist.