OPT Visionary - Summer 2014

PAGE 17 Michael Au, O.D., a native South Floridian, is no newcomer to NSU’s College of Optometry. In 2010, he completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Vi- sion Science and then went on to achieve a Doctor of Optometry degree in May 2012. During his years as an optometry student, he secured a spot on both the Dean’s and Chancellor’s List, was presented the class of 2012’s Chancellor’s Award, and earned the highest score in his class on the NBEO Part 1 Applied Basic Science exam. It became increasingly obvious that Dr. Au enjoyed his time at NSUCO when he ac- cepted a residency with the college immediately fol- lowing graduation. Dr. Au said he was inspired to pursue a career as an optometric physician after feeling embarrassed when he was called out by his third-grade school teacher for not being able to see the board. “It was certainly a great motivator for me to pursue a career that could offer solutions to these obstacles in learning because a child’s future can be greatly affected by it,” Dr. Au explained. After completing his residency training in July 2013, Dr. Au, who enjoys building guitars, became an NSUCO instructor and specializes in pediatrics. The current faculty members at NSUCO, which were not only his teachers but his mentors, were his primary motivators for applying for a permanent faculty posi- tion. “They exemplified the qualities I wanted to de- velop,” he stated. According to Dr. Au, having the ability to enable children to experience success and pursue their as- pirations has been his greatest career reward. SPOTLIGHT ON NEW FACULTY MEMBERS Faculty 411 Michael Au, O.D. Ava Bittner, O.D., Ph.D., FAAO Ava Katherine Bittner, O.D., Ph.D., FAAO, who joined NSUCO in 2014 as an associate professor, received her O.D. degree from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry in 2001 with clinical honors in pediatrics and low vision. She then completed a postdoctoral clinical research fel- lowship at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute’s Lions Low Vision Research and Rehabilitation Center from 2002- 2007 before joining the faculty as an assistant professor. Dr. Bittner, who earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Investiga- tion from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 2011, welcomed the opportunity to become an NSUCO faculty member because of the college’s “wonderful op- portunity to build research here.” She pursued a career in optometry because she found the eyes and visual system to be fascinatingly complex, although she did not foresee enjoying the research portion of optometry as much as she does. “I did not realize my passion for research and how much it resonated with me until after I started practicing as an optometrist and sought out an opportunity to be- come involved with visually impaired individuals that just happened to be through research,” she explained. Dr. Bit- tner’s research involves examining the relationships be- tween psychosocial factors and day-to-day variations in vision or photopsias among visually impaired patients with retinal degeneration or glaucoma. Her overarching goal is to design and conduct clinical trials involving interven- tions for these patients in the future. Her research interests include the psychophysical as- sessment of the healthy and diseased visual system, both to increase the understanding of this system and to de- velop tools to monitor disease and therapeutic outcomes. She is also interested in complementary and alternative approaches to sight preservation and disease/symptom attenuation in retinal degenerations and collaborates with researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for Mind- Body Research and Department of Behavioral Science. Dr. Bittner is a Fellow of the American Academy of Op- tometry (AAO) and was a proud recipient of the AAO Ezell Fellowship Award in 2010-11. In addition, she has been a member of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) since 2002, served on the ARVO Annual Meeting Program Committee from 2011- 2014, and is a member and past chair of the Low Vision Research Group (LVRG). She was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa academic Honorary Society in 2011 and is the first author on more than 15 peer-reviewed publica- tions in highly regarded scientific journals such as JAMA , Investigative Ophthalmology and Vision Science , British Journal of Ophthalmology , Retina , and Optometry and Vision Science . Continued on next page...