Students, Residents, and Fellows: Please send emails with your CV, desired start and end dates, and mention any relevant prior experience in the email. Faculty are generally more likely to be willing to mentor a student who can work for longer stretches of continuous time such as during a 5 month scholarly pursuit or a year out between 3rd and 4th year.
Vivian Lee
Corneal epithelium and nerve cross talk during regeneration
Type: Basic
Project Description: Students will be involved on a project to understand how the corneal epithelium supports corneal nerve regeneration and vice versa with an emphasis on Schwann cells as being a hub for cross-communication. As such, students will have the opportunity to assist with surgical mouse models of corneal nerve degeneration and dry eyes disease; in vivo mouse imaging; and histomorphologic evaluation of corneas.
Time Commitment: Quite flexible
Gui-Shuang Ying
Ophthalmic Research through Analysis of Publicly Available Data (All-of-Us, DRCRnet, etc.)
Type: Patient-oriented Research
Project Description: The student will develop skills in performing literature reviews, developing research proposals, gaining knowledge in statistical analysis of eye data and interpretation of analysis results (statistical analysis will be performed by a biostatistician), leading (first-authored) the development of the manuscript, and having the opportunity to present research findings at the professional conference.
Time Commitment: Flexible
Jessica Morgan
Photoreceptor imaging in health and disease using adaptive optics ophthalmoscopy
Type: Patient oriented / translational
Project Description: Students will learn about photoreceptor structure and function in retinal disease compared to normal.
Time Commitment: Preference will go to students willing to commit to longer time periods. Preference is to accept year out students over part time students.
Qi Cui
Glp1 receptor agonists for glaucoma neuroprotection
Project Description: Glaucoma pathogenesis and associated risk factors
Project Type: Basic, clinical, and translational
Project Description: Please refer to the website for current and ongoing projects.
Time Commitment: Flexible
Joan O'Brien
Glaucoma Genetics
Project Description: The project would be investigating the role of the three variants thought to be causal for glaucoma in our Cell publication.
Time Commitment: Year off students only, as currently full with shorter term students
Peter Quinn
Disease Modeling and Therapy Development for Ophthalmic Genetic Diseases
Type: Translational
Project Description: The student will learn to implement Prime Editing for the installation and correction of mutations in genes leading to ophthalmic genetic disease. This will involve editing design, molecular biology, cell culture -iPSCs, retinal organoid differentiation, large therapeutic screens, and the use of PCR, rtPCR, ddPCR, western blot and next generation sequencing workflows.
Time Commitment: Full-time only
Katherine Uyhazi
Developing gene and cell therapies for inherited retinal disease
Type: Basic science
Note: No current lab space, but interested in hosting med students in future years.
Project Description: Participate in cutting edge research to understand photoreceptor development and investigate novel treatments for blindness
Time Commitment: Summer or year-long position
Rithu Ramachandran
Utilizing large data sources to understand how social determinants of health impact eye health outcomes
Dwight Stambolian
Differentiation of stem cells to Retinal Pigment Epithelial (RPE) Cells
Type: Basic/Translational
Project Description: Learn how to perform tissue culture, work with stem cells and assess quality of differentiation to RPE cells.
Joshua Dunaief
Generating mouse models of age-related macular degeneration and testing therapeutics
Type: Basic/translational
Project Description: Learn in vivo retinal imaging in mice, eye dissection, immunohistochemistry, qPCR, Western blotting, single-cell transcriptomics
Availability: Next available position: June 2025