Biography
Dr Rebecca Sumalini Chakram is an optometrist and researcher with expertise in low vision and special needs vision care. She completed her bachelor’s degree from the Bausch and Lomb School of Optometry at LVPEI. She later earned her PhD in optometry and vision sciences from a collaborative program of LVPEI’s Brien Holden Institute of Optometry and Vision Sciences (BHIOVS) and the City, University of London in the UK, focusing on cerebral visual impairment.
Dr Sumalini has played a pivotal role in establishing the Special Needs Vision Clinic at LVPEI. She currently serves as the Regional Clinical Director for the Opening Eyes program as part of Special Olympics Bharat. She has presented her research at national and international conferences and published several papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Her work has been honored with several notable recognitions, including the Developing Country Eye Researcher Fellowship (DCERF) award from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) in 2022 and an honorable mention in the Envision-Atwell Award for low vision scientific presentation by the Low Vision Research Group at ARVO’s Annual Meeting in 2022. Moreover, her science story won the Best Video Award in the Public Choice category at the 2022 Global Young Scientists Summit.