Biography

Melanie C. W. Campbell is currently a Professor in the Department of Physics, University of Waterloo and is cross-appointed to the School of Optometry. She obtained a B.Sc. degree in Chemical Physics from the University of Toronto and an M.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Waterloo. An interest in the optical properties of the eye led to a Ph.D. from the Australian National University awarded jointly by the John Curtin School for Medical Research and the Research School of Physical Sciences.

After 2 years as a postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO in Australia, a University Research Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada enabled Dr. Campbell to join the University of Waterloo. She currently pursues research in optics of the eye, accommodation, presbyopia, ophthalmic corrections and ophthalmic diagnostic instruments. Her current research interests include defining the quality of the optical image formed on the retina; studying the optical properties of the crystalline lens and eye during development and in the older eye and integrating adaptive optics and polarization methods into instruments which image the rear of the eye. Her basic research led to improved quality of clinical images of the fundus of the eye. The Waterloo confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope that was developed by Dr. Campbell's group gave the first live images of the cones of the human eye.

Dr. Campbell is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and received the 2004 Rank Prize in Optoelectronics for studies of the gradient of refractive index in the crystalline lens.