When Dr. Chelsea Bray was a nearsighted kid growing up in Barry’s Bay, a small town in the Ottawa Valley, she desperately wanted contact lenses, but her parents and optometrist considered her too young until she was in Grade 8. Now, as head of the Advanced Contact Lens Service of the Waterloo Eye Institute, she fits kids as young as four for contact lenses that slow the progression of myopia.
Contact lenses have come a long way in the last few decades, and Bray counts herself as privileged to have seen that evolution. Now she’ll help contribute to further progress – she has moved from a teaching-focused role at the University of Waterloo School of Optometry and Vision Science to being a tenure-track assistant clinical professor with time to devote to scholarly activities and research.
Bray rediscovered her fascination with contact lenses while she was at optometry school in Waterloo, so when she graduated in 2014, she opted to do a residency in that area, supervised by her mentor, the late Dr. Gina Sorbara. By gaining advanced skills in specialty contact lenses, she felt she’d be able to really make a difference in people’s lives.
