Dr Rufai is a passionate ophthalmic educator and researcher. He has recently been awarded the NIHR Doctoral Fellowship in Ophthalmology worth £420,000 in which he leads a world-first handheld OCT study based at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, and the University of Leicester. He was the lead investigator in the world's first longitudinal study using handheld OCT to predict future vision in infantile nystagmus, published in Ophthalmology (2020). He has 40 publications and 22 prizes, including from ARVO, RCOphth, BIPOSA, BAAPS, MOS, Vernon Trophy for Ophthalmological Research, and others. His work has been covered in the national media.