Cynthia Owsley PhD, MSPH

Cynthia Owsley, PhD, MSPH, is the Nathan E. Miles Chair, Professor, and Director of the Clinical Research Unit in the Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wheaton College, Massachusetts, and received her PhD in Experimental Psychology from Cornell University specializing in perceptual development. She received the MSPH in Epidemiology from UAB.

Dr. Owsley’s research program focuses on aging-related eye disease and vision impairment and has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1983. Her research program uses many research techniques including psychophysical methods, epidemiology, clinical trials, and health services research.

She has served on panels for the National Research Council, including the Committee on Vision and the Committee on Disability Determination for Individuals with Vision Impairment, as well as the Transportation Research Board’s Committee on the Safe Mobility of Older Persons. From 2005-2007 Dr. Owsley chaired the scientific review panel for NIH’s Center for Scientific Review on Central Visual Processing. She serves on the editorial board of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. She is an Inaugural Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, and also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Gerontological Society of America. She is on the Board of Directors of Prevent Blindness and the Scientific Advisory Committee of Research to Prevent Blindness. Dr. Owsley is the recipient of the Glenn A. Fry Award of the American Optometric Foundation and the Bartimaeus Award of the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology.