Graduate Student Programs

The Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences offers research experience in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines to undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students from a number of the basic science departments throughout UIC. Currently, graduate students and PhD candidates from the departments of Biological Sciences, Psychology, Microbiology and Immunology, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the College of Medicine's MD/PhD Program are conducting basic vision-related research in the Department's various research laboratories.

NEI Awards K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award to Jason McAnany, PhD
January 2010

Jason McAnany, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Psychophysics and Electrophysiology, has been awarded a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Eye Institute (NEI). 

The purpose of the K99/R00 award program is to facilitate the transition from a mentored postdoctoral research position to an independent faculty position.  This award provides Dr. McAnany with two years of support to pursue mentored research in the Clinical
Psychophysics and Electrophysiology Laboratory Directed by Kenneth Alexander, PhD, Marion H. Schenk, Esq., Professor.   Following the mentored research phase (K99), Dr. McAnany will receive three additional years of support for independent research (R00), contingent upon securing a tenure-track faculty position.

Dr. McAnany will develop a fundamental knowledge of retinal diseases and master the clinical research techniques used to evaluate visual dysfunction during the K99 phase of the award.  During the R00 phase, he will apply the knowledge and skills developed during the K99 to devise innovative noninvasive testing methodologies for use in evaluating disease progression and in assessing the outcomes of therapeutic interventions.

The focus of the proposed research is on the development and application of a visual-noise-based testing strategy that is intended to elucidate the factors underlying contrast sensitivity deficits in individuals with retinitis pigmentosa, one of the most frequently occurring blinding hereditary retinal dystrophies.