Vijaya K Gothwal

Vijaya K Gothwal graduated in Optometry from the Elite School of Optometry, Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. She then obtained her Master's in Applied Science by Research and a PhD from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia. While pursuing her PhD, she held a 3-year Freda Bage Fellowship from the Fellowship Fund Branch of the Australian Federation of University Women Queensland Inc. This was followed by a post-doctoral fellowship from The Flinders Medical Centre, Adelaide, South Australia. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Optometry.

Dr Gothwal has played a pivotal role in establishing the low vision centre - Meera and L B Deshapande Centre for Sight Enhancement, at LVPEI. She has a rich experience of 26 years in treating low vision patients across all age groups. She has successfully handled cases like Albinism; Stargardt's Disease; Heredomacular Degeneration; Retinitis Pigmentosa; Glaucoma (adult and congenital); Diabetic Retinopathy; Age-related Macular Degeneration; Macular Scar; Microphthalmos; Coloboma; Retinal Dystrophies such as Cone Dystrophy, Rod-cone Dystrophy and Rod-Monochromatism; FEVR; Retinopathy of Prematurity; Retinoblastoma; Amblyopia; etc.

Dr Gothwal has presented widely in various national and international conferences. She has to her credit over 85 publications in peer-reviewed national and international journals. She is also the recipient of the prestigious Constance W Atwell award for Excellence in Low Vision Research (2002) by the Low Vision Research Group Committee at Ford Lauderdale, Florida, USA. She conducts research in the areas of patient-reported outcome measurement (such as understanding patient's perspectives of their treatment, eye condition etc.), and low vision especially pediatric low vision.