BITS Pilani Sankara Nethralaya Collaborative Optometry Alumnus Dr Rashima Asokan gets Young Scientist Award

She has wide ranging research interests in the domain of Optometry- Glaucoma, Occupational Optometry and Optometric Education. She takes active interests in rubrics implementation across all departments of Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai.

Dr Rashima Asokan obtained all three of her academic degrees through the Birla Institute of Technology and Science - BITS Pilani -Elite School of Optometry Sankara Nethralaya Collaborative Programmes: BS (2005), MPhil (2009) and PhD (2017) in Optometry. Her PhD was on association between lifetime ocular ultraviolet radiation exposure and ocular disease.

Dr Rashima Asokan was awarded Indian Association Of Occupational Health (IAOH) "Young Scientist Award" at the 68th National Conference of Occupational Health held at Suzlon Excellence Centre, Pune held in Jan 2018. The award was given at the 69th National Conference held at Rajkot on Jan 9, 2019. This award was for the Best Scientific Paper (under the category of professionals below 35 years of age). She received the cited award for her research paper titled, “Impact of vision Correction on the quality of life and productivity among automobile mechanics".

Dr Rashima Asokan Assistant is presently Professor, Elite School of Optometry, The Sankara Nethralaya Academy Senior Optometrist / Researcher – Glaucoma Project, Sankara Nethralaya Consultant – Occupational Optometry Services, Sankara Nethralaya Member – Teaching and Training Department, Sankara Nethralaya. She is involved in teaching at Elite School of Optometry from 2005. She joined the Chennai Glaucoma Study in 2007, one of the largest epidemiological study groups in India. She is also involved in clinical research in glaucoma.

She, along with the study team has published their works in many national and international peer-reviewed journals and currently holds 25 peer-reviewed publications. She has presented at many national and international conferences and received awards. Her research area includes UV radiation and its effect on the eye, Glaucoma, Occupational ocular disorders, Innovative education models in Optometry. She also holds as a reviewer for international journals.

She has received the grant from The Glaucoma Foundation, US for the year 2019-2020. She is also a co-investigator in the major studies such as Indo-US grant (Ocular quantitative traits study), Indo-Dutch grant (Eye movement perimetry) and Vision correction impact study among small-scale and cottage industry workers, funded by Vision Impact Institute (Singapore). She has received “ESO Alumni Association award for best research publication” four times (2013 to 2015 and in 2018) for her wide research in optometry.

She is a recipient of the prestigious award on “Endeavour Executive Fellowship” from the Australian Government in 2016 for working on glaucoma and visual fields at the university of Melbourne, Australia. She has been awarded the “Golden Jubilee Medal” by the Indian Association of Occupational health (Tamilnadu chapter) for the best scientific paper presentation from Tamilnadu in the OCCUCON 2018.

She also received the Young Scientist Award from the OCCUCON 2018. She mentors the clinical internship at Elite School of Optometry and guides undergraduate and postgraduate research works. For her innovative teaching methods, she has received the best faculty awards thrice from Elite School of Optometry.

She also has received endowment awards for optometry related educational training. She has got training for competency-based assessment using scoring rubrics from ORBIS, India. She is an active member of the Teaching and Training Department of Sankara Nethralaya. Clinical imaging is her area of interest and involved in glaucoma and cornea diagnostics at Sankara Nethralaya. Combination of both research and clinical imaging has fetched her publications in glaucoma diagnostics. She keeps herself updated with advanced techniques in imaging from ocular surface to retina.

Above all she is a dreamer, performer, achiever and Proud to be a BITSian

For more details see https://www.bitsaa.org/

About BITSAA: BITS Alumni Association (BITSAA) has emerged as one of the strongest alumni networks of any university. BITSAA International engages in charitable and educational activities by raising funds for setting up endowments, creating scholarships, rewarding teaching and research and generally promoting the development of resources at Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani, Dubai, Goa & Hyderabad campuses. BITSAA International also aims to strengthen the ties, friendship and communication amongst former students, alumni faculty and friends of the Institute. BITSAA International provides a number of channels for people to stay connected with each other and with Birla Institute of Technology & Science. Notable other alumni initiatives for BITS Pilani include Prof SSR Memorial Teaching Excellence Award, Atma Nirbara multi crore Pilani Resource Centre by 75-80 batch alumni, Prashant Anuradha Palakurthi Research Endowment and many more. For more on BITSAA see https://www.bitsaa.org/

Prof BR Natarajan
BITS Pilani Alumnus
Pilani Rajasthan India 333031
Phone: +91-9799476406
Email: brnatarajan@bitsaa.org
Website: https://www.bitsaa.org/

This release was published on openPR.