Dr. Catherine Agathos, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Eye/Head Movement Lab won a Best Poster Award in Basic Science for Postdoctoral Fellow from the International Society of Posture & Gait Research at the 2022 World Congress in Montreal, Canada.
The Higher Visual Function Question Inventory (HVFQI), created and validated by Dr. Arvind Chandna, researchers in the SEELAB, and Alder Hey Children's Hospital is a growing international study that is attracting participants all over the world, including Canada, Scotland, and the United Kingdom. This study is being done completely remote, with interviews being held through virtual meetings. It is being made available in numerous languages and even accommodating a text to speech option. This study is approved by our Institution Review Board (ethical approval) at Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute.
The SKERI community mourns the death of our longtime colleague Al Alden. Al joined Smith-Kettlewell in the 1970's, and and was indispensable in his knowledge of physics and electronics. He did the hands-on design and building of many of the devices that SKERI has been famous for, including the Tactile Vision Substitution System (TVSS), Talking Signs and many more. Even after retirement, Al stayed a part of SKERI’s vibrant community and will now be greatly missed. All of us at Smith-Kettlewell extend sympathy to his family and friends in this time of loss.
SKERI undergraduate intern Kyra Deams took second place for her poster "Gait-Specific Attentional Profile, Anxiety, and Space Perception in Younger Adults" at the Southeastern Medical Scientist Symposium (SEMSS), hosted virtually by the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Researchers at the SEELAB and collaborators at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital have validated the Higher Visual Function Question Inventory (HVFQI) an assessment tool for vision difficulties in everyday life in children with Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) and identified 11 of the fifty-one questions (the Top-11) that were highly sensitive in detecting these visual difficulties
We are saddened to learn of the passing of Alan Scott MD, world-famous ophthalmological researcher who spent much of his career at Smith-Kettlewell including serving for many years as its Co-Director and Director. He is most well-known for his pioneering research into the use of botulinum toxin to modify the characteristics of eye muscles, as a non-invasive alternative to surgery in the treatment of strabismus or crossed eyes.
A Smith-Kettlewell study measuring object information available via echolocation was recognized with a Best Poster award at the 2021 Conference on Object Perception, visual Attention, and visual Memory (OPAM 29).
Smith-Kettlewell is proud and honored to announce that one of our alumni, Dr. Joshua Miele, has received a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship for his work in developing devices to enable blind and visually impaired people to access everyday technologies and digital information. Widely known as a “Genius Grant,” this prestigious award reflects Josh's achievements while he was a scientist at SKERI as well as his present work begun in 2019 at Amazon Lab126.
The National Eye Institute has awarded an R21 grant to Santani Teng, an Associate Scientist at Smith-Kettlewell, to model perceptual mechanisms of echolocation.
