Cathy Sun, MD

Francis I. Proctor Foundation
Cathy Q. Sun, MD
Associate Professor of Ophthalmology  ·  She/Her/Hers

Dr. Cathy Sun is a glaucoma specialist whose research harnesses big data and pragmatic clinical trials to improve the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma and other eye conditions. Her work uses electronic health records and natural language processing to study clinical outcomes, builds and implements clinical decision support software, and develops prediction models for ocular disease.

UCSF Profiles ↗ The Sun Lab →

Research

The Sun Lab harnesses the power of "real-world" data to improve diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes across ophthalmology. Current work spans three areas:

Real-world data for better outcomes
  • Diabetic retinopathy: prediction models for disease progression, the role of social determinants of health, and decision-support tools for patients and clinicians
  • Glaucoma: emulating randomized trials with observational data, improving neovascular glaucoma outcomes, laser trabeculoplasty results, post-tonometry infection rates, and risk factors for acute angle closure
  • Cataract: the impact of telehealth on post-operative care and risk factors for zonulopathy
  • Pterygium: outcomes of office-based pterygium surgery
Unlocking the potential of clinical notes
  • Automated classification using natural language processing and large language models for diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma
  • Comparing diagnosis codes with automated approaches for selecting patient cohorts
  • Better detection of disease duration and social determinants of health from clinical notes
Registry-based randomized controlled trials (RRCTs)
  • Laying the foundation for future registry-based randomized controlled trials in ophthalmology

Areas of Expertise

  • Glaucoma diagnosis and treatment
  • Big-data and real-world-evidence research
  • Electronic health records, natural language processing & large language models
  • Clinical decision support and prediction modeling
  • Pragmatic and registry-based clinical trials

Education

  • Stanford University, BS, Biological Sciences — 2008
  • University of California, San Francisco, MD, Medicine — 2014
  • California Pacific Medical Center, Medicine Internship — 2015
  • University of California, San Francisco, Ophthalmology Residency — 2018
  • Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Glaucoma Fellowship — 2019

Selected Publications

For her complete and current list, see her UCSF Profiles page.

2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020