Professor Gunter Loffler
Head of Department
Department of Vision Sciences; Senior Management Group (HLS)
Gunter is a qualified Optometrist and currently the Programme Lead for the Undergraduate Optometry Programme. He researches various aspects of visual perception in normal and clinical populations. He studied Optometry at the Fachhochschule in Aalen, Germany before completing a PhD in the Department of Vision Sciences at Glasgow Caledonian University on visual motion perception in 1999. For this he received the Glaxo-Wellcome award for the best PhD thesis in the Neurosciences. This was followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago, USA, and subsequently at York University, Toronto, Canada, working with Hugh Wilson on psychophysical and brain imaging investigations of shape and face perception. Gunter returned to Glasgow in 2001 to take up a lectureship in Vision Sciences and was promoted to Reader in 2005. For a number of years, he was the programme organiser of GCU’s postgraduate Ocular Therapeutics course for optometrists training towards Independent Prescribing. Recently, he has taken over the lead for the undergraduate Optometry programme.
Some of his research has been presented in the Glasgow Herald as well as the BBC, for which he has also acted as scientific advisor.
Gunter is a registered Optometrist and qualified to practice in Germany and the UK.