Dr. Coleman is the Chair and Executive Medical Director of the Department of Ophthalmology in the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM), and Director of the UCLA Stein Eye Institute and Affiliation Chair of the Doheny Eye Institute, and Professor of Epidemiology in the UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health.

Dr. Coleman received her medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia, completed her residency training at the University of Illinois in Chicago and finished her fellowship training in glaucoma at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She received her doctorate in Epidemiology from UCLA and is a graduate of the Anderson School of Management Executive Program in Management. Dr. Coleman’s research focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, risk factors, gene-environment interactions, and societal impact of glaucoma, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration, and amblyopia. She has also examined the lifestyle limitations imposed on patients with these chronic eye diseases. She is a past member of the Scientific Advisory Panel for Research to Prevent Blindness and is currently an Associate Editor of Glaucoma for the American Journal of Ophthalmology. She has more than 257 peer-reviewed publications and has helped lead monumental studies in ophthalmology such as the Ocular Hypertension Treatment Study. Dr. Coleman is also a respected and innovative surgeon, pioneering the use of the Ahmed glaucoma valve—the world's leading glaucoma drainage device—and publishing the first peer-reviewed article describing its safety and efficacy. For over 20 years, Dr. Coleman has been the Director of the UCLA Mobile Eye Clinic and the Stein Eye Institute’s Center for Community Outreach and Policy providing vision services to the medically underserved populations of Los Angeles County.

Dr. Coleman has been actively involved in national outreach programs in ophthalmology. She was elected to the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in 2016, was a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) Committee on Public Health Approaches to Reduce Vision and Promote Eye Health, and Chair of the National Eye Institute National Eye Health Educational Program. She is former president of American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), American Ophthalmological Society, Women in Ophthalmology, and Los Angeles Society of Ophthalmology. She is recipient of the AAO Life Achievement Award and Secretariat Award and gave the prestigious LXXII Edward Jackson Memorial Lecture at the AAO Annual Meeting in 2015. She is the only AAO president to have also given the Jackson Memorial Lecture and be honored as a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She is a former member of the St. John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group Board of Trustees, the Helen Keller International Board of Trustees, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Ophthalmic Devices Panel.