When resident Dr. Zachary Richards (PGY3) scrubs in for surgery he isn’t just honing his skills as a resident, he’s thinking about how to make eye care better. An ophthalmology resident with a dual background in medicine and engineering, Richards was recently selected as one of the 2025–2026 Iowa Innovation Leadership Fellows, a program designed to cultivate entrepreneurial leadership among health professionals. 

For Richards, the fellowship represents “plugging into Iowa’s innovation ecosystem” and learning from founders, intellectual property experts, and venture capitalists who’ve successfully brought medical technologies to market. “I really wanted to meet the players here—people who’ve done this before—and learn the business strategy behind moving an idea from a prototype to something patients actually use,” he says. 

Engineering Meets Medicine 

Richards’ path to Iowa started north of Austin, Texas, where he grew up in Cedar Park, Texas, where he was a part of Vista Ridge High School’s marching band before heading to Texas A&M University to study biomedical engineering. He stayed at Texas A&M for medical school as part of the innovative “EnMed” program in Houston, which awards both an M.D. and a Master of Engineering. 

EnMed allowed him to blend his passions, hands-on tinkering, problem-solving, and patient care, into a single training track. “We had clinical rotations carved out just for innovation,” he recalls. “We were taught how to identify unmet clinical needs, figure out which ones are worth pursuing, and prototype early solutions.” 

That training has already borne fruit. During EnMed, Richards led a project to overhaul the slit lamp microscope, making it more accessible for larger-framed people and adaptable for teleophthalmology. That project is ongoing at EnMed, and the experience sharpened Richards’ ability to spot inefficiencies and engineer solutions. 

Innovating in Real Time 

Today, Richards is applying that skill set to new ideas, even amid the demands of residency. His current project involves attaching a low-cost, open-source stereo-video module to an operating microscope, built around a Raspberry Pi platform, to capture immersive 3-D surgical footage for education. 

“Right now, most surgical videos trainees watch online are 2-D, so you lose the depth perception that’s critical for ophthalmic surgery,” he explains. “We’re building a system that preserves stereopsis, so trainees can review cases in virtual reality fusing both eyes’ perspectives. Recording this way usually requires significant capital investment into costly heads-up displays, but we’re able to get great quality from this device at minimal cost.” 

Richards points to supportive mentors in Iowa’s department for encouraging him in his project. He credits Dr. Ryan Diel for recording cataract surgery with the new camera, as well as Dr. Edward Linton for mentoring him on the virtual reality aspects of the device. “There’s been great momentum and a lot of buzz,” he says. “We’re making progress.” 

A Surgeon–Inventor’s Vision 

Through the Iowa Innovation Leadership Fellows Program, Richards hopes to refine the business and leadership skills that complement his technical abilities. “Identifying clinical needs is going to happen whether I want it to or not,” he says with a laugh. “The harder part is finding and meeting a true need, which sometimes feels like catching lightning-in-a-bottle. And when I catch it, I need to know how to protect my intellectual property and connect it with people who can bring it to market.” 

While he doesn’t ever see himself leaving clinical practice for entrepreneurship, Richards envisions becoming a surgeon who understands what’s technically feasible and can offer sound design feedback, consult on device development, and perhaps launch ventures of his own. “I’m not sure which part of the innovation process I’ll be a part of once I’m in practice,” he admits, “but I think it’s important to prepare myself for any role from consultant to founder.” 

More Than Medicine 

Away from the hospital and workshop, Richards enjoys fishing, gardening, playing pickleball, and collecting vinyl records—pursuits that balance the high-intensity worlds of surgery and innovation. 

But right now, his focus is on becoming the well-rounded “surgeon-inventor” he’s long envisioned: someone who delivers excellent patient care while helping develop the tools and technologies that shape the future of vision care worldwide. 

“I’m still barely scratching the surface,” he says. “But Iowa’s program is a critical step in learning how to take my ideas beyond the prototype stage—and ultimately make a real impact for patients.”