Vijaya K Gothwal

Vijaya K Gothwal pursued under-graduation in Optometry from the Elite School of Optometry, Chennai, India. Subsequently, she did her Masters in Applied Science (Research) and PhD from the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Her post-doctoral fellowship was from The Flinders Medical Centre, Adelaide, South Australia. Her association with L V Prasad Eye Institute is over 30 years wherein she has provided clinical training to over 1000 optometrists and played a pivotal role in designing the curriculum for Optometry that was offered by the Bausch and Lomb School of Optometry. Dr Gothwal is a prominent low vision specialist and has been instrumental in setting up the Meera and L B Deshpande Centre for Sight Enhancement at the institute; to cater to patients with low vision.

Vijaya Gothwal’s research interests include Outcomes research in Ophthalmology and Low Vision. Specifically, her research over the last two decades has focused on patient-reported outcome measurement (holistic assessment of the impact of ocular conditions on patients lives’ and its treatment on their quality of life), the effectiveness of treatments, low vision (specifically pediatric low-vision). A key component of her research has been the development and validation of patient-reported outcome measures using modern psychometric techniques – Rasch analysis. More recently, her research has focused on cognition and falls in the vision-impaired adults. She conducts collaborative research with researchers in the UK and Australia.

Dr Gothwal has published widely and has to her credit over 100 papers in peer-reviewed national and international journals, over 130 presentations at National and International conferences, and she is a reviewer for several peer-reviewed national and international journals. She was awarded the prestigious Constance W Atwell Award for Excellence in Low Vision Research in 2002 by the Low Vision Research Group Committee at Ford Lauderdale, Florida, USA. Also, she is a fellow of the American Academy of Optometry (AAO) and is the first Indian to be awarded the Diplomate in Low Vision (Research) by the AAO. She is the Assistant Secretary of the International Society for Low Vision Research and Rehabilitation (ISLRR).