Affiliation: University of Alabama at Birmingham

Dr. Safal Khanal is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Optometry. His laboratory focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying emmetropization, eye growth regulation, and normal and abnormal refractive development through a combination of imaging, electrophysiology, and molecular techniques in animal models and humans.

Dr. Khanal earned his Bachelor of Optometry and Doctor of Optometry degrees before joining the University of Auckland School of Optometry, where he earned his PhD studying defocus-signaling mechanisms in humans. He subsequently completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Auckland and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, studying the mechanisms and treatments of myopia in human children and tree shrews.

Dr. Khanal is a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and an active member of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and the International Society for Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision.