Laura Sweeney
Senior Lecturer in Vision Sciences
Department of Vision Sciences
Laura is a Senior Lecturer in Vision Sciences and the Learning and Teaching Advisor for the Department of Vision Sciences. She took up her lectureship at GCU in 2015; in 2022 she was promoted to Senior Lecturer. Laura is a qualified Independent Prescribing Optometrist and previously worked as a Research Optometrist at Dundee University.
She has worked in both hospital and community optometry in various specialist roles following the completion of her Optometry degree at Glasgow Caledonian. She is one of a small number of NHS Education for Scotland Glaucoma Accredited Optometrists. Laura has been a College of Optometrists Council member since 2017 and is currently Vice Chair of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Area Optical Committee.
Laura became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2017 and subsequently became Senior Fellow in 2021. She is interested in developing learning experiences that effectively prepare students for their future roles within healthcare, and she has a particular interest in utilising peer learning and student-created content to develop autonomous learners.
Laura’s teaching primarily relates to the management of ocular disease. She is module Lead for the final year undergraduate module Shared Care and Ocular Therapeutics. Laura also has teaching responsibilities across undergraduate Optometry and Orthoptics modules and the postgraduate course Therapeutic Prescribing for Optometrists.
Her current teaching responsibilities centre around themes of glaucoma care, emergency eye care, clinical decision-making and evidence-based practice. Laura’s responsibilities as Learning and Teaching Advisor include overseeing academic quality and mentoring teaching staff within the department of Vision Sciences.
Laura undertook her PhD at Glasgow Caledonian, and completed her PhD examining the effects of stereoscopic displays on binocular function in 2015. Subsequently, she has been involved in translational research projects examining the efficacy of low-cost devices in the diagnosis of ocular conditions, and of systemic conditions which affect eye movement behaviour (such as Alzheimer’s disease) and has supervised undergraduate, master's and PhD projects in these areas.
Laura is also a member of the British and Irish University and College Contact Lens Educators Research Committee and has been involved in various projects related to ocular surface disease and contact lenses through this work. Her current research interests include oculomotor function, accommodation, stereopsis, eye movement behaviour, ocular surface disease, glaucoma, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Laura was awarded the George Giles Postgraduate Research Prize by the College of Optometrists.