Celebration Profiles – December 27-29
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…
Jessica Wang, BS
Jessica is a third year Doctor of Optometry (OD) student. She is a proud double bear who earned her degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley in 2019.Before starting optometry school, Jessica had the pleasure to work in Dr. Xiaohua Gong’s lab for 3+ years, researching lens biology and cataractogenesis. She then spent her gap year exploring her passion for art and design as a UX/UI designer. After working in research settings, private practices, and tech companies, Jessica found patient care to be the most awarding experience and committed to becoming an optometrist.
She is the current president of the Optometric Business Management club, serves as a student member on the Admissions Committee, and is the most recent recipient of the student innovator award. She is continuously inspired by the amazing community here at Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science, and cannot wait to stay busy and involved with everything happening in the field of optometry.
Michael Silver, PhD
Dr. Michael Silver is a Professor of Vision Science and Neuroscience at UC Berkeley. The research goals of Dr. Silver’s laboratory are to better understand how the human brain constructs representations of the environment and how these representations are modified by cognitive processes such as attention, expectation, and learning. They address these questions by applying a combination of behavioral, brain imaging, modeling, and pharmacological techniques to the study of healthy human participants as well as patients who suffer from diseases that affect visual perceptual processing.Dr. Silver is also the Director of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. Click here to learn more.
Keith Uyemura, BS
Keith is a third year Doctor of Optometry (OD) student. He grew up in the city of La Cañada Flintridge in Southern California and graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS in Molecular Environmental Biology with a Minor in Nutritional Sciences. During his gap years, Keith spent several years working as a Clinical Research Coordinator at UCSF School of Medicine in the division of Cardiology where he studied several novel medications, procedures, and devices. He also worked at the front desk of the University Eye Center as a Patient Services Coordinator and as a LASIK and PRK technician where he discovered his passion for excellent, personalized patient care and his love for the optometric community.Throughout his academic career, Keith has been very involved in student-run club activities on campus. He is currently the Co-President of the Myopia Control Club, the Director of Event Planning of the Optometric Business Management Club, and was previously the Secretary for the EyeChat! Club. Keith is currently involved in Myopia Control research and was selected to be a member of the CooperVision Contact Lens Leadership Society. He also loves to teach and enjoys being a TA for the Optometry 200B/BL, Optometry 200CL, and Optometry 200DL classes for the first and second year optometry students.
Keith has been practicing photography for over a decade and has captured memories from many events during our year-long Centennial Celebration!
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