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Last updated 24th March 2026

Dr Sarah J Waugh was appointed Reader in Optometry and Vision Sciences at the University of Huddersfield in February 2021.

Sarah completed a Diploma in Applied Science (Optometry) from Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, winning both academic prizes. A Martin Wells Postgraduate Research Scholarship took her to the University of Melbourne to complete a Master’s of Science degree and a project about clinical assessment of accommodation, convergence and fixation disparity in symptomatic vision. Sarah then travelled and took up a PhD position at the University of Houston, where she was awarded a distinction on her doctoral qualifying exam. She conducted doctoral research on understanding psychophysical visual mechanisms of Vernier Acuity (with Dennis Levi). Sarah then became a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (NSERC) at McGill University (Ophthalmology) investigating temporal frequency discrimination in central and peripheral vision (with Robert Hess). She subsequently won an individual Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to return to the University of Melbourne (Psychology), in addition to a full ARC project grant. Sarah accepted a Lectureship in Vision Sciences at Aston University (Birmingham, UK) in 1997 and then a Readership in Vision Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University (Cambridge, UK) in 2001. Sarah’s research interests in visual processing of first- and second-order images, visual crowding, normal and anomalous visual development, binocularity and amblyopia were further developed. Sarah (with John Siderov) won a first Evelyn Trust grant for ARU to establish a clinical psychophysical testing suite and she also established unique NHS paediatric ophthalmology and visual electrophysiology services within the ARU University Eye Clinic, joint ventures between Cambridge University Addenbrooke’s Foundation Hospital and ARU. Sarah has supervised 7 PhD students to completion, 4 Postdoctoral Research Fellows and externally examined 5 PhDs nationally and internationally. She is a Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Reviewer Panel member, reviews for many international journals and granting agencies in science and vision, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and a registered Optometrist with the GOC.