Home » UPIKE adds another faculty member to College of Optometry

UPIKE adds another faculty member to College of Optometry

Josephine O. Owoeye
Dr. Josephine O. Owoeye

School opens in the fall

PIKEVILLE, Ky. (July 19, 2016) — Josephine O. Owoeye, O.D., MPH, has joined the faculty at the University of Pikeville-Kentucky College of Optometry (KYCO) as an assistant clinical professor with a specialty in pediatric optometry and binocular vision.

Owoeye earned her Doctor of Optometry degree and completed residency training in pediatric optometry at the Salus University Pennsylvania College of Optometry. She earned a Master of Public Health degree at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. At KYCO, she will be teaching binocular vision, strabismus and oculomotor rehabilitation and pediatric optometry.

Before moving to Pikeville, Owoeye was an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for nearly 12 years. Her clinic focused on the treatment of refractive errors and amblyopia, and assisting in the management of strabismus cases in children and adults. Her expertise also included performing comprehensive eye examinations for children with special needs.

While at the Wilmer Eye Institute, she successfully served as a vision consultant and technical expert for the Baltimore City Health Department Bureau of School Health where she helped to improve vision screening protocols for the Baltimore City Public School children. In that role, she helped develop parent brochures; revised parent and school forms to promote better understanding; assisted in implementing evidence-based screening guidelines; helped develop an algorithm for the electronic medical record vision module; recommended and developed a supplemental training manual for screeners; and trained all vision screeners. As a result of her efforts, Baltimore City Health Department increased the number of children screened because of improved outreach and protocol.

Owoeye has dedicated her career to research and clinical activities that focus on preventable blindness in children. She served as an investigator on the Baltimore Pediatric Eye Disease Study (BPEDS), an NIH funded study to determine the prevalence of eye disease in preschool children in Baltimore. She was also an investigator on the Baltimore Reading and Eye Disease Study (BREDS) that was conducted to determine the associations between reading difficulties and uncorrected vision problems in children.

She is a fellow of the American Academy of Optometry. She has completed various leadership trainings and has given numerous pediatric lectures at optometric meetings. Prior to moving to Pikeville, she organized her church’s annual health fairs for nearly 10 years. She was also involved in vision screenings for homeless children.

In addition to her commitment to continue her work and advocacy to reduce preventable blindness in children, Owoeye enjoys teaching and mentoring. She served on the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Admissions committee.

The Kentucky College of Optometry will open this fall, with 60 students admitted per class for a total of 240 students. The American Council for Optometric Education has granted the Kentucky College of Optometry the pre-accreditation classification of “Preliminary Approval.”

SEE ALSO:

UPIKE creates Kentucky College of Optometry

UPIKE receives loan to build new facility for Kentucky College of Optometry

Kentucky College of Optometry set to recruit inaugural class