Celebration Profiles – August 7-11
In honor of our centennial anniversary, we are featuring members of our optometry community — past and present — each day of 2023!
See below for this week’s profiles.
This Week, We Are Celebrating…
Britta Hansen Brown, OD, FAAO
Britta Hansen (OD ’11) Brown, OD, FAAO is a primary care optometrist near her childhood home in Willmar, Minnesota at Fischer Laser Eye Center. Dr. Hansen practices primary care optometry with a focus on specialty contact lenses, co-management of premium cataract surgery, including light adjustments of the RxSight Light Adjustable Lens Implants. As part of her return to the practice that served her family growing up, she has been able to focus on scleral contact lens fittings for keratoconus patients in the greater Minnesota area.After completing residency at the San Francisco VAMC, Dr. Hansen moved to the Seattle Washington area, practicing first at Northwest Eye Surgeons alongside many cataract surgeons, glaucoma, cornea and retinal specialists. During this time post residency, she completed her Fellow in the American Academy of Optometry. After a great start to her career at this tertiary care center, Dr. Hansen switched to private practice at Monroe Vision Clinic in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Hansen and her growing family made the decision to return to Minnesota where she grew up.
She looks forward to furthering her career and challenging her clinical skill, as well as being in close proximity to her parents and sister, traveling to the North Shore and around the Midwest with her 3 small children, and further experiencing life as a coach’s wife.
Darrell B. Carter, OD, PhD, FAAO
Dr. Darrell B. Carter received his OD from the Los Angeles School of Optometry in 1948, two years before he obtained an AB in Psychology at UCLA. He received a PhD in Physiological Optics from the UC Berkeley School of Optometry in 1957. As a volunteer in the U.S. medical infantry corps, Dr. Carter received a Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Combat Medical Badge for his valor. After returning to Berkeley for his graduate training, Dr. Carter had begun writing his PhD thesis when he was offered a job as assistant professor at the University of Houston in 1954, where he later became Director of Clinics (1960–64). While still at Houston, Dr. Carter completed his Berkeley PhD dissertation in 1956 and received his PhD in January 1957. Dr. Carter remained at Houston until joining the clinical faculty at Berkeley in 1964, remaining there for the rest of his career where his academic and clinical service was exemplary.Throughout his tenure, Dr. Darrell Carter was committed to increasing diversity in the student population and encouraged many minority and women applicants over the years. Dr. Carter also played an important role in promoting the expansion of optometric practice in California to include diagnostic pharmaceutical agents (DPAs). He testified several times before the state legislature in support of DPA legislation (passed in 1976). He later developed a continuing education course in the 1980s designed to assist optometrists who needed further education and training to qualify for diagnostic pharmaceutical certification. Dr. Carter was active in optometric continuing education, giving more than 150 lectures worldwide on many topics. After he retired from the faculty in 1994, he was rehired as Director of Continuing Education in Optometry, serving until 2000.
Samantha Zepeda
Samantha Zepeda, Director of Leadership Giving & Corporate Partnerships, plays a key role in our fundraising efforts and has focused on cultivating and soliciting a portfolio of leadership donors and major gift and planned gift prospects. Samantha also oversees our Partners in Education program, the school’s corporate philanthropy.Samantha joined the alumni and development relations (DAR) team in 2019 as the Director of Annual Giving from Berkeley Law, where she served as an Annual Fund Officer. Prior to this role, Samantha was an analyst at Haas in the Advancement group. Her data comprehension, interpretation, and analysis skills, as well as her donor solicitation experience, make her a vital part of the school’s DAR team!
Victoria Cynthia Fong, MA
Victoria is a vision science student, born and raised in San Francisco, CA! She worked for Dr. Teresa Bowman at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (Bronx, NY), where she studied the role of splicing factors in blood cancers. Previous to that, she received her Masters degree in biology from Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT) in the lab of Dr. Stephen Devoto, where she studied the influence of Hedgehog signaling on somite and muscle patterning. As an undergraduate, she double majored in biology and neuroscience and behavior. She wanted to continue her passion in biology research by moving into more translational work.She chose the Vision Science program because the program will allow her to expand her skills in conducting basic research, and also design and optimize therapeutics. This group is a mix of students with foundations in different disciplines. By learning from them, she can gain a well rounded perspective and become a better scientist. She is fascinated with understanding the genes and signaling pathways that contribute to disease. Upon throwing light on these genes, she hopes to move forward by integrating this information with various translational therapies in animal models. She hopes to also employ behavioral experiments in her work. She aims to conduct research with the intent to contribute positively to society. She would love to see successful “bench-to-bedside” results in her lifetime! When not in the lab, you can find her at the gym, baking (cinnamon rolls or scones, usually), and now exploring more of the East Bay!
Glen Ozawa, OD
Dr. Glen Ozawa graduated from the University of California Berkeley School of Optometry in 2001. He completed a residency in ocular disease in the following year, and he has been seeing patients in private practice since 2002.Dr. Ozawa is also a Clinical Professor of Health Sciences at UC Berkeley, teaching in the classroom and seeing patients with interns at the Eastmont Wellness Center. In 2015, the California Optometric Association recognized Dr. Ozawa with an award for Excellence in Teaching. He has also received the Michael G. Harris Teaching Award from the graduating classes of 2014, 2015 and 2020, and the Roy Brandreth Award in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
When Dr. Ozawa is not teaching, he is involved in diabetes research. He has published a number of studies in various peer-reviewed journals regarding screening for diabetic retinopathy and electrophysiological changes in the eye that are associated with diabetes. In his free time, Dr. Ozawa enjoys camping and fly fishing.
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