In a following postdoctoral appointment at the University of Rochester, Austin used the world's first adaptive optics ophthalmoscope to measure the properties of human photoreceptors, which included mapping the trichromatic cone mosaic. The work was published in the journal Nature.
From 1998 to 2004, he was on the faculty at the University of Houston College of Optometry, where he designed and built the Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope (AOSLO). Similar AOSLO systems have been replicated in many vision science labs and commercially available systems are currently in development.
Dr. Roorda is on the executive committee of the National Science Foundation’s Center for Adaptive Optics and holds grants from National Institutes of Health and Foundation Fighting Blindness.
In recognition of his success, Austin is the recipient of two major awards; the Borish Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the American Academy of Optometry and the Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award from the University of Houston.
Since January 2005, Dr. Roorda has been at the UC Berkeley School of Optometry where he is the Chair of the Vision Science graduate program and holds the Solon M. and Pearl A. Braff Chair in Clinical Optometric Sciences. His regular teaching includes basic optics for optometry students and visual optics in the graduate program. He also gives yearly short course lectures on ophthalmic and adaptive optics at the International Wavefront Congress and Photonics West.
Austin is also an editorial board member for Vision Research and the Journal of Vision. He has four graduate students and their current research involves both clinical applications for microscopic retinal imaging as well as basic investigations of structure and function of the visual system.