Professor Alex Hewitt graduated from the University of Tasmania in 2001 and obtained his PhD investigating the molecular and phenotypic associations for open angle glaucoma from Flinders University of South Australia in 2009.

He completed formal ophthalmology training at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne in 2011. The following year he was the Novartis Research Fellow at the Lions Eye Institute and was awarded a WA Tall Poppy Award from the Australian Institute of Policy and Science.

In 2016 and 2018, he received an NHMRC Research Excellence Awards for the top ranked Practitioner Fellowship application and Program Grant application, respectively. His clinics at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and Royal Children’s Hospital specialise in inherited eye diseases.