Dr. Merlyn Meneze Rodrigues has devoted her career to health and public service on both the state and federal levels. Read more about her contributions. NLM_NIH WomensHistoryMonth WomenInMedicine
I became a doctor because of my desire to make a meaningful use of my life. Several of my family members were physicians or nurses and they interested me in medicine from an early age.
Born Merlyn Meneze in India, in 1938, Dr. Rodrigues earned her doctor of medicine degree from the Christian Medical College of Madras University in India in 1959. She went on to complete her master of science degree in ophthalmology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. In 1965, at the encouragement of Lorenz Zimmerman, M.D., an internationally-acclaimed pathologist and chief of the Ophthalmic Pathology Division at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.
As a professor of ophthalmology and pathology at the University of Maryland, section chief for the National Eye Institute, and director of pathology for the Wills Eye Hospital, Dr. Rodrigues has been actively involved in training numerous fellows and medical students from the United States and abroad. Her own research has focused on ophthalmic pathology, immunohistochemistry, and molecular biology.