Team building | Clinical Psychophysics Unit, Optometry & Vision Sciences, University of Melbourne

On a weekend in August our lab went on a winter retreat down at Wilson’s Promontory, the southernmost tip of mainland Australia. Fortunately the bucketing rain in Melbourne did not follow us south, and we enjoyed spectacular winter weather at ‘The Prom’.

Highlights of our trip include:

Spotting wombats in the national park
Dipping our feet into the (freezing) water at Squeaky Beach
Gas heated accommodation at the Tidal River huts
Short walks near Tidal River (Squeaky Beach track, Pillar Point, Loo Errn track)
Dinner, drinks and games and a big breakfast

Part of the coastline at Wilson’s Promontory (Photo credit: Juan Sepulveda)

On the Tidal River footbridge before heading on the Squeaky Beach walking track (Photo credit: Chongyue He)

At Squeaky Beach (Photo credit: Chongyue He)

Happy new year! Our lab has returned in 2016 after a well deserved break while the University of Melbourne was closed for the festive season.

In 2015 we said goodbye to a few of our lab members:

Luke Chong and Jia Jia Lek graduated from their PhD degrees
Shonraj Ballae successfully completed his PhD thesis and is due to graduate from his degree
Juan Sepulveda graduated from his Masters degree
Siyuan Chen moved to France to continue her research

Janet Chan also successfully completed her PhD thesis and is due to graduate, and has returned to our lab as a post-doctoral research fellow.

We also have a new page as part of the University of Melbourne Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences website, where you can find out about our current research projects and collaborations

We have had some overseas visitors arrive in 2015 as part of our international collaborations. Dr Fumi Tanabe moved to Melbourne in October 2015 from the Department of Ophthalmology at Kinki University, Japan. She will be spending some time here continuing her research in glaucoma and visual field tests. At the end of 2015, Dr Quentin Lenoble from Universite Lille Nord, France, visited our lab for a few weeks as part of an international collaborative grant between our Australian and French research institutes.

Of course, we like to show our guests the Australian way of life and what better time of year than our summer: pizza picnics, walks on the beach, penguin spotting, indoor bubble soccer (this was our chosen end-of-year ‘lab event’) and one of our favourite outdoor sports, cricket.

Fumi practises her batting skills with encouragement from Andrew, cricket enthusiast

Fumi, Quentin, and Kabilan visit Phillip Island, home of the fairy penguins, on Christmas Eve

Our lab end-of-year event where we attempted to play indoor soccer while in an inflatable bubble suit. There were lots of bumps, rolls, and upside-down moves but not so many goals!