Faces Behind the Research *

Dr. John Nolan

BSc PhD, Fulbright Scholar, Howard Fellow

Dr. Nolan is a senior scientist and Director of the Institute of Vision Research and the Macular Pigment Research Group, MPRG (www.wit.ie/mprg). He is a key opinion leader on the subject of macular pigment and AMD, and has been invited to speak at over 40 international scientific conferences and has published over 30 scientific peer reviewed publications on the topic. In May 2010 he was awarded a Howard Fellowship by the Howard Foundation at Cambridge University, UK.

Miss Shamina Asif

BSc MCOptom

Shamina studied at the University of Aston and has been working as an optometrist since 2005. She is currently a Council member for the College of Optometrists and Chair of the Dudley Local Optometric Committee. Shamina has a keen interest on the effect of nutrition and smoking on Age Related Macular Degeneration. Recently Shamina presented her findings from a study on the effect of carotenoids supplementation and age related macular degeneration at The University of Cambridge of which is soon to be published in a professional journal.

Professor Stephen Beatty

L.R.C.P.I., L.R.C.S.I., M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O.(N.U.I.), M.M.Sc., F.R.C.Ophth, E.B.O.D., M.D.

Professor Beatty has been a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon since 2001. He is the Director of the Macular Pigment Research Group (MPRG, www.wit.ie/mprg), and Director of the Institute of Eye Surgery, Whitfield Clinic Waterford. He is a key opinion leader on the subject of AMD and macular pigment, and has been invited to speak at over 15 international scientific conferences. He has a special interest in vitreo-retinal surgery, and has had published over 80 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. James Loughman

PhD FAOI, Senior Vision Scientist

Dr Loughman works within a research capacity at the Optometry Department at Dublin Institute of Technology. James established and is director and National Chair of the Irish chapter of Optometry Giving Sight, the only global fundraising initiative that specifically targets the prevention of blindness and impaired vision due to uncorrected refractive error (URE).

Eithne Connolly

Eithne Connolly has been working with the Institute of Vision Research since November 2009. She graduated from University College Cork with an honours degree in Environmental Earth Science and is in the process of completing a masters degree. Eithne has recently published findings from her Msc studies in the scientific journal Current Eye Research and soon to be IOVS. 

Professor David Thurnham; Howard Professor of Human Nutrition

Professor Thurnham currently is an advisor to the Howard Foundation on the macular carotenoids, a consultant writer for Sight & Life and lectures regularly on nutrition and immunology at the University of Indonesia. Previously Professor Thurnham spent ten years in the Department of Human Nutrition at the London School of Tropical Medicine followed by shorter periods at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and the Dunn Nutrition Laboratory in Cambridge. During Professor Thurman's time in Birmingham, he developed the first liquid chromatographic method, used to quantify and separate the three macular carotenoids lutein, zeaxanthin and meso- zeaxanthin. Professor Thurnham then moved onto the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland where he became an Emeritus Professor of Human Nutrition.