Victor Opoku-Yamoah

Dr. Victor Opoku-Yamoah is a professionally-trained optometrist from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana since 2014. During the period of his practice, he completed  online-based programs leading to Postgraduate Diploma in Community Eye Health and Master of Optometry respectively from University of Cape Town and University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He further obtained his Masters in Vision Science from the University of Waterloo, ON in 2021, having completed a research thesis on age-related changes in chromatic discrimination and perceptual modeling under the supervision of Dr. Jeffery K. Hovis.

Following his MSc, Victor worked for over a year as a Research Associate in a pediatric optometry lab under Professor Susan J. Leat. His main projects included development and validation of a new differential visual acuity test (WatDAT) for infants with blindness and vision loss, survey on pediatric optometry among Optometrists in Canada and retrospective analysis of pediatric clinical data.

He is currently pursuing a PhD at the School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of Waterloo under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer J. Hunter, Head of the Advanced Ophthalmoscopy Waterloo Lab (AOWL). The focus of his doctoral research is to develop a retinal imaging technique using adaptive optics fluorescence lifetime ophthalmoscopy (AOFLIO) to interrogate lipofuscin, a biomarker of cells in the human photoreceptor/RPE complex in Stargardt disease. Using this new imaging modality would enhance understanding of early retinal disease processes, diagnosis, monitoring progression, and evaluation of treatment efficacy.