Harness our research strengths to solve real-world problems with a focus on the global vision crisis.
Objectives
- Lead nationally and globally at the interface of society, health and technology by enabling high-impact, world- class eye, health and vision science research through:
- Fundamental bioscience – Examining the processes that form the basis of vision.
- Applied studies – Applying scientific discoveries made in the lab to the development of trials and studies.
- Societal impact – Transforming scientific results into new treatments and approaches to care, improving the health of the population.
- Promote the impact of cell-to-society research within our research pillars to enhance the visibility of research and clinical innovation.
- Promote the communication and mobilization of research, including through community- and patient- focused communication, engagement with professional and public health partners, and working to shape public health policy regarding eye and vision care.
- Explore, promote and nurture interdisciplinary research between faculties and through engaging with the University’s Transformative Health Technologies initiative.
- Promote and nurture national and international collaboration, including through increasing strategic research partnerships, deepening relationships with national and international institutions and leveraging the strengths of the Waterloo Eye Institute, Centre for Ocular Research and Education (CORE), Centre for Sight Enhancement (CSE) and Centre for Eye and Vision Research (CEVR).
- Increase research impact through strategic partnerships, including with private, public and not-for-profit organizations, to enhance competitiveness and innovation and to impact policy.
- Foster an environment that stimulates entrepreneurial pursuits and leverage networks to expand opportunities in innovation and entrepreneurship, including through creating interdisciplinary teams to solve problems relevant to Canada’s economy and increasing infrastructure to support research commercialization and policy application.
- Attract, develop and retain tomorrow’s research leaders, including through robust faculty hiring and development, as well as through community outreach to raise awareness of optometry and vision science as career paths.
Printable version
Goal 2: Accomplishments
Research awards
School faculty received multiple research awards in 2024-25, including:
- NSERC Discovery Horizon grant: Dr. Paul Murphy received a five-year grant for a set of interdisciplinary studies to answer fundamental questions about dry eye disease.
- NSERC Discovery Grant: Dr. Jennifer Hunter received a grant for her project, “High Resolution Non-linear Imaging of the Retina.”
- NSERC Discovery Grant and Discovery Launch Supplement: Dr. Krista Kelly received grants for her project, “Ocular motor control and its role in the development of eye-body coordination.”
- New Frontiers in Research Fund (CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC): Drs. Ben Thompson, Lisa Christian and Marlee Spafford were awarded interdisciplinary research funding with colleagues from Engineering and Psychology to study the impact of a social robot in improving children’s adherence to amblyopia treatment.
The journal Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics named two University of Waterloo papers as being among the most impactful it has published since 1981, with a 1992 paper on eye growth in chicks, by Drs. Elizabeth Irving, Jacob Sivak and Murchison Callender, recognized as number one.
Outstanding graduate students won various awards, including the following:
- Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program (OGS) Doctoral Research Award: Nijani Nagaarudkumaran and Sharon Qiu
- NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral: Anne Marie Yeboah
- President's Graduate Scholarship: Nijani Nagaarudkumaran, Sharon Qiu and Anne Marie Yeboah
- WS Rickert Graduate Student Fellowship in Science: Nijani Nagaarudkumaran
- 2024 Fighting Blindness Canada (FBC) Clinician Scientist Emerging Leader Award: Sharon Qiu
In addition, 16 School of Optometry and Vision Science projects were awarded funding through the 2024 Canadian Optometric Education Trust Fund (COETF) research awards. Of these, 10 were led by undergraduate or graduate students and two by postdoctoral fellows. We are grateful for the support of the COETF and their donors for their promotion of optometric research.
Research funding*
April 2024-March 2025
- Public Sector & Non-Profit: $6,873,663 (67.45%)
- Industry: $2,798,289 (27.46%)
- Federal Tri-Agency: $460,000 (4.51%)
- Internal Awards: $58,928 (0.58%)
Total: $10,190,880
Does not include CEVR research funding, which is shared with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Research output: Publications, 2024 calendar year
Refereed journal articles
Refereed conference proceedings
Letters and editorials
* Limited to publications in the Scopus research database including a faculty member as author. Includes publications from CORE fitting those criteria.
Selected conferences 2024 calendar year
- American Academy of Optometry: 39 posters or presentations with School author, 24 as first author
- Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology: 48 posters or presentations with School author, 18 as first author
Drs. Chelsea Bray, Lyndon Jones and Jill Woods
CORE research output: 2024 calendar year
- 34: Peer-reviewed papers (29.57%)
- 29: Scientific posters/papers (25.22%)
- 20: Professional publications (17.39%)
- 32: Continuing education presentations (27.83%)
* Includes publications not in Scopus and that don't list a faculty member as author.
Centre for Ocular Research & Education
The Centre for Ocular Research and Education (CORE) is the School’s oldest and largest research centre, having begun as the Centre for Contact Lens Research (CCLR) in 1988 under the leadership of Dr. Desmond Fonn. Over the years, it has been involved in some of the most important advancements in the history of contact lenses, including the development of disposable lenses and the evolution of silicone hydrogel lenses. Since it began, CORE has trained more than 100 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and overseas thesis students.
In April 2025, CORE announced a plan to expand its scope to a broader range of fields of research, moving beyond its traditional front-of-eye work to research involving the whole eye and visual system. It will also seek to partner with principal investigators in fields outside vision science to apply its research expertise to processes such as study design and clinical trials.
As part of the transition, Dr. Lyndon Jones stepped down from his position as director at the end of June 2025, moving to a new position of principal scientist. He remains on faculty at the School. A steering committee consisting of Drs. Jill Woods, Austin Roorda and Chelsea Bray has taken over the leadership of CORE as it embarks upon a new phase of research and development.
Interdisciplinary research
The following interdisciplinary research groups including School faculty members received Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology seed funding in 2024:
- Can-View: Establishing a national eye data repository for AI-driven vision care policy and innovation– Drs. Stan Woo and Andre Stanberry, School of Optometry and Vision Science; Drs. Helen Chen and Plinio Morita, School of Public Health Sciences
- Eye-body coordination during stair climbing in children with amblyopia – Drs. Krista Kelly and Lisa Christian,School of Optometry and Vision Science; Dr. James Tung, Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
- Harnessing technology and AI to advance the pediatric assessment of sensorimotor and cognitive functions – Dr. Ewa Niechwiej-Szwedo, Kinesiology andHealth Sciences; Drs. Lisa Christian and Ben Thompson, School of Optometry & Vision Science; Dr. James Tung, Systems DesignEngineering; Dr. Nino Zahirovic, AdHawk Microsystems
Patient education
The School ramped up patient education initiatives starting in 2024. Since then, 12 pieces of patient education content have been created on various topics, most of them including both an article and video.
- A refreshed clinic website launched in March 2025 put all these pieces of content in one easy-to-find place.
- Between May 1, 2024, and April 30, 2024, these articles got nearly 3,500 views on the clinic website.
- On YouTube, the full videos got more than 2,000 views and short reel-style videos got nearly 4,000 views.
- Patient education content has also been promoted on social media, where our reach has grown significantly in the last year. A single patient education post often got more than 2,000 views on Instagram alone.
Goal 3: In progress
Graduate studies
The Vision Science Graduate Studies program offers research-based MSc and PhD degrees. The School also offers a combined OD/MSc program and joint degree programs in areas such as biology, systems design engineering, and aeronautics.
Historically, the School has been one of the largest providers of postgraduate research training in vision globally. To date, the program has graduated 167 MSc and 74 PhD students. However, enrolment has declined in recent years, in part due to a wave of retirements amongst the School’s faculty and in part due to lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic having curtailed mobility and research. As of May 2025, there are 22 students enrolled in vision science graduate studies at the School.
To rebuild graduate student numbers, the School has developed a focused plan to recruit five new research-active faculty members, ideally to start in 2026. Approval for recruitment has been obtained from the University and School advisory committees are in process of being established.
With the successful recruitment of new faculty, it is anticipated that graduate student numbers will return to the program’s historical average of around 35 students a year within a few years. In the longer term, we aim to grow graduate student numbers to a higher level of 45-50 students a year.
Canadian Vision Imaging Centre
A new research centre is being established that aims to use advanced eye imaging to make breakthroughs in better understanding, diagnosing and treating eye conditions and diseases. The Canadian Vision Imaging Centre also aims to use the eye's unique properties to find biomarkers that could aid interdisciplinary teams in the early identification of systemic disease.
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Ontario Research Fund (ORF) each provided $2.36 million to establish the new centre, which will be headquartered in the Waterloo Eye Institute. The funding from the CFI and ORF makes up the bulk of the $6.2 million setup cost and will go towards purchasing state-of-the-art equipment for the new centre. Some of this equipment has begun to arrive and researchers are excited to get their projects underway.
Can-View Eye Data Repository
The Can-View project aims to establish an eye data repository with clinical data and imaging from optometrists across Canada including our own WEI. Optometrists see patients that may have ocular disease and also systemic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and brain injury. Optometry practices are a unique source of longitudinal health data that could potentially be used for breakthroughs such as finding new biomarkers to predict ocular, neurological and systemic diseases.
The project kicked off with the Eye Data & AI Summit in June 2024, at which experts in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and privacy gathered with leaders from industry and the optometry profession in Canada to discuss how to work towards a national eye data repository.
Work is now ongoing to co-develop governance policies for eye data with the Southern Chiefs’ Organization and Manitoba Association of Optometrists. We are also working to develop the structure of the eye data repository. We anticipate Can-View’s high-quality, de- identified eye data will advance AI-driven research, policy and innovation led by optometry to address eye health and vision nationwide. advance AI-driven