Biography
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. I started my undergraduate work at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa in 1983 doing a B.S. degree in physiology and computer science. After moving to the United States, I completed a B.S. in biology and an M.S. in neurobiology at the State University of New York at Albany in 1989 and 1990 respectively. In 1994 I obtained a Ph.D. in physiology under Howard Howland, Ph.D. from Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y. studying the mechanism of accommodation in the avian eye.
I did postdoctoral work from 1994 to 1996 under a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada International Postdoctoral Fellowship with Dr. Melanie Campbell, Ph.D. and Dr. Jake Sivak, O.D. Ph.D., at the School of Optometry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. My work there was primarily on optical changes in the human crystalline lens with accommodation and aging. During 1996 to 1998 I was first a postdoctoral fellow and later an Assistant Scientist with Paul Kaufman, M.D. in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI. There I worked on ciliary muscle function in relation to accommodation and presbyopia in cynomolgus and rhesus monkeys. In October 1998 I joined the faculty at the College of Optometry, University of Houston, Houston, TX, as an Assistant Professor. In 2003 I received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor and in 2005 promotion to Professor with a joint appointment in Biomedical Engineering. While at the University of Houston, I taught geometric optics in the Optometry Professional Program and my research was on the physiology and optics of accommodation and presbyopia in humans and monkeys. My research involved in-vitro studies with enucleated human and animal eyes and in-vivo studies in rhesus monkeys and human subjects.
In 2016, I resigned my academic appointment to pursue more entrepreneurial opportunities as an independent consultant. I currently provide consulting services to the ophthalmic community/industry in a wide range of areas.