2016: It’s a wrap!

2016 has again been a busy year for our lab. Key highlights from our research areas of interest:

1. Glaucoma: A highlight of our program this year was a visiting PhD student, Clement Beugnet, from the University of Lille, France. Clement’s research is interested in how glaucoma impacts on complex visual processing of objects and scenes. 2016 also provided an opportunity for PhD candidate, Nikki Rubinstein, to present her work at an international conference (22nd International Perimetry and Imaging Symposium) in Udine, Italy. We also welcomed two additional postdoctoral researchers to the lab: Astrid Zeman and Phil Bedggood.
2. Migraine: In 2016 we continued a large, 3 year study that will determine whether migraine events can be predicted by daily testing of vision on an portable tablet device (iPad), which has primarily been conducted by postdoctoral research fellow Janet Chan. We have also been involved in a collaborative project with the Royal Melbourne Hospital investigating a rare condition known as visual snow. Part of this work was presented this year at the international Asia Pacific Conference on Vision in Fremantle, Western Australia.
3. Healthy ageing: In 2016, we welcomed two Honours students (Chongyue He and Huda Waraich) to the lab who conducted novel experiments looking at how healthy ageing impacts on the processing of moving objects. These types of experiments may have relevance to driving or other tasks where detecting moving objects is critical to performance. Both students have successfully completed their Honours year, so congratulations!

A recent highlight was Allison winning the ‘No-Bell Prize’ at the Melbourne Neuroscience Institute’s final event for the year in December. The competition requires researchers to communicate what they do to a wider audience without the use of jargon or technical words. Each time a scientific word is used that is not comprehensible, one of the judges can ring a bell. The least number of bells wins!

Thank you to all of our marvelous volunteers for assisting in our research program during 2016, and we wish you all the best for the festive season.

Above: Chongyue He (Honours student) graduated in December 2016

Above: Our research leader Allison brings home the ‘No-Bell Prize’ trophy for the Department of Optometry & Vision Sciences for the second year running (last year’s winner was Dr Christine Nguyen).

Above: Our end-of-year event was held at the Brunswick Bowling Club in mid December with barefoot bowls and a bbq dinner