Directory - Clinical Research Unit - UAB Department of Ophthalmology

Cynthia Owsley, PhD, MSPH
Professor of Ophthalmology
Nathan E. Miles Chair of Ophthalmology, Director, Clinical Research Unit, and Vice Chair for Clinical Research

Biography | Contact | Publications | Research Program

Cynthia Owsley was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and was raised in Philadelphia and southeastern Connecticut. She received her B.A. degree from Wheaton College, Massachusetts (1975) majoring in Psychology and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received the Ph.D. from Cornell University (1980) in Psychology, concentrating in the area of perceptual development. Following graduate school, Dr. Owsley did post-doctoral training in vision and aging at Northwestern University (1979-82) and also in epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (1998) where she received the M.S.P.H.

Cynthia Owsley is Professor of Ophthalmology in the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), is Director of the Clinical Research Unit in the Department of Ophthalmology, and also serves as Co-Director of the Center for Research on Applied Gerontology at UAB. Dr. Owsley has directed several projects funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Eye Institute on aging-related vision impairment, eye disease, and their impact on everyday life. Her research program has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1983. She served as the Chair of the Planning Panel on Vision Impairment and Rehabilitation for the National Eye Institute’s National Plan for 1999-2003, and served as a member of the Panel for the 2004-2009 Plan and 1993-1998 Plan. She is currently a member of the Editorial Boards of Vision Research and Current Eye Research, is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Gerontological Society of America, is the recipient of the Glenn A. Fry Award from the American Optometric Foundation and the Bartimaeus Award from the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology, and is Senior Scientific Investigator for Research to Prevent Blindness, Inc. For the National Research Council, Dr. Owsley was previously a member of the Committee on Vision and Committee on Disability Determination for Individuals with Visual Impairments, and is currently Chairperson of the Committee for Safe Mobility of Older Persons of the Transportation Research Board. She is a consulting member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Panel on Ophthalmic Devices and a member of the External Advisory Committee of the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at UCLA. Dr. Owsley is married to Dr. Michael Sloane, is the mother of two, and resides in Mountain Brook, Alabama with her family.