Hi, my name is Lisa Nivison-Smith, and I am a researcher at the University of New South Wales in Sydney Australia. This is the start of my new LIFE Apps blog, LittleScienceMama.

I am really excited to join the LifeOmic team and share with you everything related to eye health. Despite using our eyes almost from the moment we are born, most of us don’t really know much about this fantastic organ. My aim is to share knowledge about the visual system so that individuals can take a more preventative approach to their eye health. This is critical because after all, we still do not really have any proven treatments to cure blindness. Once eye sight is lost, it’s generally lost forever.

Lisa’s scientific expertise is in eye diseases – from their basic biology of the disease to disease treatment and management including nutritional and lifestyle recommendations.

My interest in the world of science came from my grandmother, a scientist herself and one of the first women to study physics and chemistry at the University of Sydney. Many years later, I followed in her footsteps, studying a Bachelor of Science and a PhD at the University of Sydney in cell biology and tissue engineering. I then changed fields, moving to the University of New South Wales and beginning my postdoctoral (after PhD) research at the School of Optometry.

I fell in love with the retina – one of the most beautiful biological tissues in human body. I delved into research on diseases of the retina which cause blindness. A few years later, I began working with the Centre for Eye Health, a clinic sponsored by Guide Dogs NSW/ACT at the University and I now research methods to detect eye disease earlier and to help prevent vision loss.

The inner layer of the eye, or retina, is similar to film in a camera. It receives light from an image we are looking at, and converts that light into electrical impulses which are sent through the fibers of the optic nerve to the brain. Credit: 7activestudio.
The inner layer of the eye, or retina, is similar to film in a camera. It receives light from an image we are looking at, and converts that light into electrical impulses which are sent through the fibers of the optic nerve to the brain. Credit: 7activestudio.

When I am not researching, I am wife to my high-school sweetheart Nathan, mother to my cheeky daughter Madeleine, passionate communicator of eye health research and closet Taylor Swift fan. I am also passionate about my own health, being an avid crossfitter and trying to balance maintaining good eating habits against the challenges of motherhood.

I would love to hear about topics you would like explored in my blog posts, so drop me a line any time! – LitteScienceMama

 

Featured image: Optometrist performing visual field test. Credit: bluecinema.

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