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The College of New Jersey Magazine
To register, please visit alumni.tcnj.edu/events.
Please join
President
Michael A. Bernstein
at these alumni receptions
Death of the Fox
Brewing Company
Clarksboro, NJ
Hosted by Chuck Garrity '94
October 30, 2025
6–8 p.m.
The Lotos Club
5 East 66th Street, NYC
Hosted by President Emerita
R. Barbara Gitenstein
November 6, 2025
6–8 p.m.
To date, the Samsara devices have restored vision
to more than 450 patients worldwide.
As Samsara's CEO, Ruggia has spearheaded efforts to get the AMD technology
into the hands of doctors and has also secured regulatory approval and insurance
coverage in countries all over the world. "The hardest part of the job is to take a
novel technology and make the ophthalmology community aware this is a good
option for patients," he says.
Samsara's procedure surgically inserts a telescope just four millimeters thick
into the back of the eye, where it can magnify the image to shrink the blind spot
and allow patients to see again. To date, the Samsara devices have restored
vision to more than 450 patients worldwide.
For several dozen of these patients, Ruggia has been in the operating room to
observe. "The frustration patients feel about losing their vision really impacts
their psyche," he says. "When they can start to see again, they cry, and the
surgeon cries, and I cry — it's amazing."
— Michael Blanding
The implantable Samsara device acts like a
telephoto lens to magnify images.
