17 How Childhood Curiosity Led to the Career of Dr. Xiaoying Zhu The professor says she has never stopped trying to answer a question she first asked herself in high school. Anyone in the SUNY Optometry community who watched CBS New York “Health Watch” this August may have seen a familiar face: Xiaoying Zhu OD, MD, MS, FAAO. While her position as head of the Myopia Control Clinic is the reason behind the televised appearance, Dr. Zhu’s dedication goes back much further, all the way to her teenage years. Growing up in China, Dr. Zhu noticed something that she found strange. “The majority of my classmates did not wear glasses when we first started high school, and only two students stayed that way when we graduated,” she says. “I was one of those two students.” She wanted to know what had caused the mass loss of perfect vision—and what could be done about it. Dr. Zhu joined the SUNY Optometry community in 2015. In the classroom, she focuses on more than the syllabus, structuring lessons in a way that encourages student engagement. “I try to teach lectures in an integrative fashion, and labs with lots of hands-on experience,” she says. Dr. Zhu is also researching the etiology of axial myopia. “Specifically, I am studying some intrinsic factor within the eyes that might be involved in eye growth and emmetropization,” she explains. While there is no cure for myopia, under Dr. Zhu’s direction, the Myopia Control Clinic strives to curb its progression. It is, she says, work that brings her great fulfillment. And though she may not have fully solved the riddle that first came to her in high school—there is no permanent fix for some vision conditions—her work continues to contribute necessary scholarship to the field, improving the lives of every child who walks through the doors of the clinic. The Myopia Control Center was featured by CBS New York’s “Health Watch” in August 2017. Dr. Xiaoying Zhu
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