Ivan Cher was a consultant ophthalmic surgeon at the University of New South Wales’ Teaching Hospital, Sydney. He was born in Wellington, New Zealand on 22 November 1927, the son of Paul Cher and Minnie Cher née Spiro. He attended Wellington College, where in 1945 he gained the Lance George Memorial medal and a national scholarship to the University of New Zealand. He qualified in 1951 with the Colquhoun Memorial and Marjorie McCallum medals From 1952 to 1954 he was a resident medical officer and eye registrar at Wellington Hospital. He then went to the UK, where he was a resident medical officer in ophthalmology at St Thomas’ Hospital, London. From 1957 to 1958 he was chief resident at the County Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He then returned to the UK, where he was a registrar at Wolverhampton Eye Infirmary until 1959. He arrived in Australia in the same year. He was a clinical assistant at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney from 1960 to 1961 and then the founding ophthalmic surgeon at the University of New South Wales’ Teaching Hospital. In June 1990 the University of Sydney awarded him an honorary fellowship for his role in founding and continuing to promote the projects of the joint committee for tertiary Jewish studies, which provided funds for the department of Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish studies and other departments at the university. In 1955 he married Ursula Herzberg. They had three children, Lawrence, Leonie and Nathan. Ivan Cher died on 21 August 2018 in Melbourne, Victoria. He was 90.