News

As construction begins on the transformative Waterloo Eye Institute, the School of Optometry and Vision Science's clinic will temporarily relocate. The interim location, just minutes away, will continue offering comprehensive eye care and specialized services with the same level of excellence while providing quality clinical education to our optometry students.

We bid a heartfelt farewell to Andrea Carthew, longtime Associate Director, Advancement whose dedication and hard work have been invaluable to our School and the optometric profession for the last 20 years. Andrea is pursuing a new opportunity at the University of Waterloo Faculty of Health as the new Director of Advancement.

Over the summer, several of our faculty members who you may remember from your time as a student, announced their retirement and concluded their teaching and clinical careers. Read each of their stories of impact on teaching and research: Dr. Murchison Callendar, Dr. Jeffrey Hovis, Dr. Elizabeth Irving, Dr. Daphne McCulloch and Dr. Trefford Simpson.

Dr. Victor Spear (OD’82) is helping us bring our vision for the Waterloo Eye Institute to life with a generous $250,000 matching gift. As construction on the Waterloo Eye Institute advances, we’re in the final stretch to reach our $35 million goal. With $7 million left to raise, now is the time to act. Every dollar you donate will be matched, doubling your impact and helping us achieve our vision. Together, we can make this dream a reality! 

Dr. Afua Asare (MSc '13) is a University of Waterloo School of Optometry and Vision Science alum who’s now working in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her journey to where she is today has been filled with ups and downs.

Dr. Ehsan Zare Bidaki, a postdoctoral fellow, has been working to effectively measure ocular surface temperature since he started his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Paul Murphy of the School and Dr. Alexander Wong of Engineering. Now Zare Bidaki and Murphy are working to commercialize the device they have developed as a screening tool for dry eye and, in future, other ocular surface diseases.

A range of VIPs, including The Right Honorable David Johnston, University President Vivek Goel, Dean of Science Chris Houser, Stan Woo and members of the Seeing Beyond 20/20 campaign steering committee put shovels in the ground to ceremonially mark the start of construction on the Waterloo Eye Institute (WEI), which will be Canada’s premier centre for optometric patient care, education and research.

For more than 40 years, Stephen Tait (OD’79) wore two optometric hats: owner-optometrist at Ingersoll Optometry and part-time clinical supervisor at the School. He recently hung up both hats – but we couldn’t let him go without giving him a chance to explain why he kept being both a small-town optometrist and a beloved mentor to students for so long.

Some 300 people participated in our events during Alumni CE Weekend, which featured the WEI groundbreaking. In addition to the evidence-informed learning, there were opportunities to connect at the Oktoberfest in June dinner and the Saturday social, which brought together CE and Eye Data & AI Summit participants. The Class of 1974 also held its 50th reunion.

For the past 20 years Canadian optometrists have participated in an annual, worldwide study to investigate the current state of contact lens prescribing. The Center for Ocular Research & Education at the University of Waterloo collaborates with the University of Manchester (UK) to investigate the current state of contact lens prescribing in their respective countries. The benefit of the survey is to enable practitioners to gain an understanding of current contact lens prescribing trends in Canada as well as other countries worldwide. In the past, paper surveys were mailed to practitioners throughout Canada. This year we are moving to a different format.