Fiona Costell MD, FRCPC

Dr. Costello began working towards her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, prior to entering Medical School in 1991. She graduated in 1995, and embarked on a neurology residency program at Memorial University which she completed in 2000. Dr. Costello then did a two-year clinical research fellowship in Neuro-Ophthalmology at the University of Iowa. She worked for five years at the University of Ottawa prior to relocating to Calgary in 2007. Dr. Costello joined the Department of Clinical Neurosciences due to the outstanding research occurring here in the Arresting MS Program with the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary.

Dr. Costello’s research focuses on the use of the anterior visual pathway as a system model of MS. Together with her colleagues, she is studying the mechanisms that underpin neurological disability in MS patients, with a view to developing new therapeutic strategies for this disease.

Dr. Costello has published 27 articles and 10 book chapters to date. In addition to this, she regularly presents nationally and internationally in the areas of Neuro-Ophthalmology and Multiple Sclerosis. Together with her collaborators, she has secured over 1.5 million dollars in research funding from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Neuroscience Canada, and the Networks of Centres of Excellence, Stem Cell Network. Recent awards include: the P.J. Leinfelder Award for Research at the University of Iowa (2002), the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society Young Investigator Award (2007), and the American Academy of Ophthalmology Achievement Award in 2008. In 2008, she was honoured by being named one of Canada’s "Top 40 under 40” for innovations in vision research.