As President and CEO of Miami Lighthouse for the Blind, Virginia Jacko is committed to ensuring that blind and visually impaired adults, low vision seniors, children without resources for eyecare, Miami’s early learners, and youth have equitable access to vision rehabilitation, blindness prevention, and education.
Under her leadership, the agency’s Charity Navigator rating moved from 2 to 4 stars, the highest rating possible. To date, Miami Lighthouse for the Blind has achieved 14 consecutive 4-star ratings. Virginia founded the Miami Lighthouse Academy, an Accredited Professional Preschool Learning Environment, which includes the first fully inclusive early learning prekindergarten for ages one through four where visually impaired students learn along with their sighted peers. Recently, she launched a comprehensive blind soccer initiative, the first of its kind, for children from age one through high school.
In addition to the Miami Lighthouse Academy, Virginia founded the Miami Lighthouse Cortical Visual Impairment Collaborative Center. As Principal Investigator, she was awarded from a private foundation a two-year $2 million grant, the goal of which is improving diagnosis and timely assessment and rehabilitation of children with CVI.
Virginia is the author of numerous peer-reviewed, archival journal publications and is a national expert in website and distance learning accessibility for people with vision impairment.
