Researcher Colm McAlinden, International Optometrist of the Year by the UPC’s Terrassa School of Optics and Optometry

Researcher Colm McAlinden, International Optometrist of the Year by the UPC’s Terrassa School of Optics and Optometry
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Irish researcher, optometrist and ophthalmologist Colm McAlinden

The UPC’s Terrassa School of Optics and Optometry (FOOT) presented the International Optometrist of the Year award to the Irish researcher Colm McAlinden, an optometrist, ophthalmologist and researcher, on 29 September. The event formed part of the School’s graduation and academic year opening ceremony, which this year was held on site in the Auditorium of the Vèrtex building, on the UPC’s North Diagonal Campus in Barcelona, and broadcast live on the FOOT’s YouTube channel.

Sep 29, 2021

Colm McAlinden (Ireland, 1984) is one of the few who is both an optometrist and ophthalmologist. He graduated with honours in Optometry from Cardiff University (UK) in 2006 and, after a year at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, he completed a master’s degree at the University of Ulster (Ireland), where he obtained his doctoral degree in Refractive Surgery in 2010. In the same year, he completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Flinders University (Australia).

In 2015, he graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Swansea (UK), having visited Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary of Harvard University (USA) and the Hôpital de la Timone in Marseille (France). He held positions in medicine and surgery at hospitals in Wales and Bristol, a period in which he was awarded a doctoral degree in Medicine (MD) for his research contributions. He also has been awarded the title Fellow of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists (FRCOphth) and the European Board of Ophthalmology (FEBO).

Colm currently works in the UK National Health Service (NHS) and is a visiting professor at the Wenzhou Medical University (China).

As a researcher, his area of expertise includes the study of the psychometrics of patient-reported outcome measures, cornea, cataracts, refractive surgery, evaluating ophthalmic instruments, public health and epidemiology. Among his outstanding contributions is the Quality of Vision (QoV) questionnaire, which has become a widely used tool worldwide to assess the outcomes of cataract and refractive surgery in clinical practice, clinical trials and regulatory approval studies.

A prolific researcher, McAlinden has published over 145 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has received numerous awards. He serves on the editorial board of six prestigious specialised journals, such as Eye and Vision.

Sponsoring 2021-2025 FOOT undergraduate students
The researcher, who sponsors the 2021-2025 undergraduate students of the Terrassa School of Optics and Optometry (FOOT) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC), was presented the Optometrist of the Year award by the dean of the School, Joan Gispets, during the academic year opening ceremony, which was held in the Auditorium of the Vèrtex building on the UPC’s North Diagonal Campus (Barcelona) on 29 September and which can be viewed on the FOOT’s YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/TaVLBSLSsBY.