Professor Jan E Lovie-Kitchin
MSc(Optom) LOSc Melb, Grad Dip Rehab Lat, PhD QUT
Jan Lovie-Kitchin graduated as an optometrist from the Department of Optometry at the University of Melbourne in 1973. She undertook one year of clinical practice and returned to complete post-graduate research towards her Masters degree in 1976. After 4 years as a Clinical Optometrist at the Victorian College of Optometry, she moved to Queensland to take up a Lecturer position in the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) School of Optometry and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1992. She completed her PhD studies in 1996.
Jan has extensive clinical, teaching and research experience in the assessment and management of elderly patients with low vision. With Professor Ian Bailey in 1976, she designed the Bailey-Lovie (ETDRS) visual acuity charts, which are now used in all major research studies and in low vision clinics throughout the world. In 1985, she published a textbook on the management of patients with visual impairment due to age-related macular degeneration, one of the first texts to emphasise a rehabilitation approach. Her research interests lie mainly in the clinical assessment of vision and the reading and mobility performance of adults with visual impairment. She has supervised 11 graduate students conducting research on visual impairment in adults and children. She has over 110 refereed publications and has received the Garland W Clay Award from the American Academy of Optometry (1998), the QUT Award for Teaching Excellence in Postgraduate Research Supervision (2006) and the Hamlyn R Brier Clinical Optometry Award for excellence in clinical optometric practice from the Optometrists Association Australia, Queensland Division (2009).
Jan has been a consultant optometrist at the Kooyong Low Vision Clinic in Melbourne and at the Low Vision Care Centre in Brisbane. In 1993, she established the QUT Vision Rehabilitation Centre (VRC), a multi-disciplinary rehabilitation service for visually impaired patients, within the QUT School of Optometry. Jan left her full-time academic position at QUT at the end of 2006 but she continues as a consultant optometrist and clinical supervisor of final year optometry students in the VRC. Since 2007 Jan has been an elected non-executive Director of Vision Australia, the national not-for-profit organisation for people who are blind or have low vision. Jan is currently an Adjunct Professor at QUT, and was recently appointed Chair of the University Human Research Ethics Committee.