annual_report_2014

Faculty Member Receives Distinguished Professor Honor from SUNY Board of Trustees Dr. Jose-Manuel Alonso was one of 19 faculty members across the entire State University of New York System to be appointed by SUNY’s Board of Trustees as a distinguished professor last year. “SUNY’s highest faculty honor, the distinguished ranking, is reserved for the best of the best,” said SUNY Board Chairman H. Carl McCall. “Each professor to

earn this distinction has advanced their field while teaching and mentoring their students, often collaborating and innovating with their colleagues, and serving society at large through their work.” Dr. Alonso, who has been a faculty member at the College since 2002, is a visual neuroscientist who has made significant contributions to the understanding of how visual information is processed in the primary visual cortex, the area of the brain with the most detailed representation of visual space.

Chairman McCall

SUNY Optometry Researchers Receive Four SUNY Brain Network of Excellence Grants

Research projects focusing on brain and eye disorders conducted by faculty and students at the College received a total of nearly $380,000 in funding as part of the initial round of awards provided by the new SUNY Brain Network of Excellence. Dr. Jose Manuel Alonso, Dr. Stewart Bloomfield, Dr. Robert McPeek, Dr. Qasim Zaidi and Dr. David Troilo, as well as several students at the College, are currently working on four of the eight neuroscience projects that received the first round of funding through this newly established SUNY Research Foundation program. “On SUNY campuses across the state, our students and faculty are making major medical breakthroughs, discovering with each new venture a more effective way to understand, diagnose or treat diseases that affect brain and eye function in people of all ages,” SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher said in an announcement about the awards. The SUNY Brain Network of Excellence, one of five networks throughout the SUNY system, was created to maximize interdisciplinary and collaborative neuroscience research across the SUNY campuses and facilitate partnerships with academia, industry and community.

Research Foundation Fellowship Awarded

Dr. Kathryn Richdale, the Dr. Alden N. Haffner Innovation Chair at the College and director of the Clinical Vision Research Center, was awarded a 2014-15 Research Foundation Presidential Fellowship. Dr. Richdale is working to enhance the clinical trials infrastructure and increase awareness of patient-based research conducted throughout the SUNY system campuses. The Presidential Fellowship Program is designed to enlist the expertise and assistance of faculty across the system in research collaboration. Presidential Fellows lead and foster multidisciplinary research collaboration among campus researchers and other partners in support of SUNY’s research agenda.

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