Sophie started her optometry career in the Northern Territory. She has broad experience working in public health and corporate settings across metropolitan, rural and outback Australia. She has extensive experience working in ophthalmology teams and training nurses in East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Sophie studied her undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne and Graduate Certificate in Ocular Therapeutics at ACO. She is currently the National Professional Services Advisor at Optometry Australia. She is passionate about empowering students and colleagues to improve their knowledge so they can play a wider role in improving the health and wellbeing of our underprivileged communities locally and overseas. Sophie is passionate about corporate governance. She is a member of Governance Institute of Australia (GIA) and Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD), and has completed her Certificate in Governance for Not-For-Profits. She was the recipient of Victorian Government’s Women in Leadership scholarship and has completed AICD’s Company Directors Course.

Associate Professor Lauren Ayton is an optometrist and medical researcher at the University of Melbourne. She leads the Vision Optimisation Unit, leading both natural history and interventional trials (including gene therapy) for inherited retinal diseases. Her research interests include retinal disease, low vision and vision restoration. Lauren is passionate about research translation and improving patient care. She is also the Director of SPARK Melbourne (a research accelerator program that originated at Stanford University) and is involved in several industry clinical trials and start-up companies. She has previously worked in industry in the USA, as part of a Harvard-affiliated startup company, Bionic Eye Technologies. Lauren has held positions on a number of committees, including Optometry Australia, Vision 2020 and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

Theodora Elia-Adams holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Taxation from the University of Melbourne and is a Chartered Accountant and an Associate Member, Australian Institute of Company Directors. She is a board member, former EY partner, business advisor and tax specialist.

Theodora has key skills in governance and quality assurance, finance and budget management, and risk identification and management. She has worked in the medtech, bioscience, construction, health, retail, banking, and wealth management industries.

With 25 years of experience as a trusted business advisor and tax professional working with a broad and diverse range of enterprises from pre-revenue start-ups to some of world’s largest and best known brands, Theodora has valuable insight and experience into what makes businesses successful and the common pitfalls and traps that catch many businesses out.

Darrell Baker is the owner and director of Bullseye Optometry and Sensory Clinics in Perth, Western Australia. He has a special interest in the management of neuro-ophthalmic disorders. Darrell graduated in Johannesburg in 1986 and worked in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the United Kingdom before migrating to Australia in 1999 where he worked as a partner in an independent practice for 12 years. Darrell has extensive experience in corporate governance. He is the immediate Past President Optometry Australia, former Vice President and Board director Optometry Australia, and is Past President Optometry Western Australia. Darrell is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Sayuri Grady is currently Special Counsel consultant lawyer with Lawyerbank, having previously been General Counsel and Head of Legal at the Australian Public Service Commission. She has 15 years Executive and Senior Executive experience as a lawyer for various Australian Government Departments, including in Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Indigenous Affairs portfolio advising on Indigenous policy and working closely with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations. Sayuri has a diverse portfolio of Board and Committee experience, including the Australian Research Council, Australian Government Legal Service, the ACT Legal Aid Review Committee and is an External Adjudicator for ACT Corrections. She is a Past President of the ACT Division of the Association of Corporate Counsel Australia and was Chair of the Australian Government Legal Network’s Professional Development Committee. Sayuri is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Roman is an experienced optometrist, educator and public health clinician. He has been involved with the ACO since 2007- as full time staff for 12 years and more recently as a sessional optometrist, fulfilling a number of clinical and leadership roles, including Lead Optometrist Primary Care and Head of Primary and Specialist Services. Roman has also contributed to the ACO’s education offerings, through lectures to undergraduate students as well as involvement its certificate courses.

More recently, Roman has worked in senior policy and advocacy roles at Vision 2020 Australia and the Stroke Foundation (current). Roman feels a strong connection with the ACO’s core ethos, mission statement and values; and of the unique position of the ACO in providing leadership in Australian optometry, community, allied health service delivery, education and research.

Outside of the ACO, Roman is currently undertaking a Master of Public Health course and is a Standards Representative on select committees for the Consumers’ Federation of Australia.

Lien Trinh holds a Bachelor and Masters degree in Optometry (University of Melbourne, UNSW Sydney), and a Master of Public Health (LSHTM). Lien is a passionate advocate for health equity and dedicated optometrist based in Darwin delivering eye care to communities across the Northern Territory.  Lien is also the founder of research translation podcast Talking Eyes.

Lien began her optometry career as a clinical resident at the ACO in 2005, and has extensive experience working across not-for-profit, private and corporate sectors of optometry. More recently, she has led a number of key projects as a public health practitioner including Kids NT, an initiative to provide children in the Northern Territory the opportunity for vision screening, and EndTrachoma, a national project to support the elimination of trachoma in remote Indigenous communities. Lien has also worked in the low-income settings internationally as a volunteer optometrist, project officer and lecturer.

Professor Bruce Thompson AM is an active clinical scientist, with over 30 years of experience working in hospitals, universities, the community sector and business. He is the current Head of Melbourne School of Health Science at the University of Melbourne. Bruce is a key opinion leader in respiratory medicine nationally and internationally and sits on numerous national and international scientific and clinical committees, and boards for the profession, non-government and not for profit organisations, and industry. He has extensive international reputation across medicine (respiratory and cardiovascular) and biomedical engineering. He is past President of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and was the first non-medical president in the history of the society. His published works include a book on lung function, as well as numerous book chapters and 165 peer-reviewed journal articles and official documents. As an established clinical researcher in lung function, asthma, allergies and respiratory health, Bruce has been awarded competitive grants of over $35.9M including NHMRC and ARC schemes.

Dr Michelle Waugh completed undergraduate optometry and post graduate research, business and data analytics degrees at the University of Melbourne. She has worked with remote communities in the UK and Sri Lanka providing eye care as well as in Australian corporate and public health settings. As a previous clinician at the ACO she has provided eyecare across many of the general, specialist and teaching clinics there and understands the unique nature and value of the services that are provided.

Michelle is also passionate about professional continuing education and helped to build the ACO education portfolio during her time with the ACO as a manager and Head of Education. During this time she completely redesigned many of the certificates to ensure they were evidence-based and implemented many continuous improvements and systems to ensure their ongoing viability. She also created the Public Health and Leadership in Eyecare Certificate and the ACO-GAP, a clinical self-assessment tool for auditing and guiding future personal CPD planning. Michelle believes in interdisciplinary collaboration and during her time at the ACO also provided lectures and clinical skills guidance to GPs, school nurses, and orthoptists.

More recently she has been involved in a collaborative health services digital implementation research project between the Centre for Eye Health and the Royal Eye and Ear Hospital and also supporting the global rollout of Johnson and Johnson’s myopia prevention product portfolio as part of their medical education and commercial divisions.