Dr. Stern’s retina career began with studying early steps in vision, photoreceptor cell excitation, and gap junctional conductance between photoreceptor cells. After this, he pursued clinical retina practice which provided additional valuable research direction. In 2007, Drs. Stern  and Sally Temple co-founded the Neural Stem Cell Institute where they discovered the sub-population of stem cells in the human retinal pigment epithelial (RPESC). In 2010 they organized the Retinal Stem Cell Consortium for preclinical IND-enabling work on RPESC transplantation as therapy for dry Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). They discovered that less differentiated RPE progenitor cells were more reparative than highly differentiated ones. His current research focus is to compare younger progenitor cells with mature fully differentiated RPE cells to identify the pathways underlying improved vision rescue.  In 2013, Dr. Stern received the Audacious Goals Prize from the National Eye Institute, and in 2015 he was named the Professional of the Year by the Northeast Association for the Blind.