Affiliation: University of New South Wales, Sydney; University of Houston, College of Optometry

Dr Cecilia Chao is a translational research optometrist. She is currently appointed as an Adjunct Lecturer at the School of Optometry and Vision Science, UNSW Sydney Australia, and a Senior Research Associate at University of Houston College of Optometry. She was trained in the State University of New York, College of Optometry and in Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Her research expertise on the ocular surface includes studying the mechanism and discovering potential biomarkers and treatment for dry eye, corneal neuropathic pain and post-LASIK induced neuropathic dry eye using state of art in vivo techniques in both humans and animal models. She also studies contact lens induced sub-clinical inflammatory responses as biomarkers to predict and prevent corneal infiltrative events.