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Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits (2002)

Chapter: Appendix D: Biographical Sketches

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
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Appendix D
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

Peter Lennie is professor at the Center for Neural Science and dean for science at New York University. He is a member of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and has obtained multiple research grants from the National Institutes of Health for his studies on vision and other related topics. Other memberships include the Experimental Psychology Society, the Optical Society of America (Fellow), the Physiological Society, and the Society for Neuroscience. He has been appointed to various international committees, such as the Organizing Committee of European Conference on Visual Perception and the UK Image Interpretation Initiative External Review Board. He received the Merit Award from the National Eye Institute in 1992 and 1997. He was chair of the National Research Council’s Committee on Vision from 1991 to 1995 and more recently served as a member of the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, England.

Ian L. Bailey is professor of optometry and vision science and director of the Low Vision Clinic for the School of Optometry, University of California, Berkeley. He has been one of the pioneers in the development of many of today’s more scientifically based approaches to visual acuity measurement and the prescribing of low

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×

vision aids, publishing numerous articles or chapters in the scientific and professional literature. Bailey was chair of the low vision section and the low vision diplomat program of the American Academy of Optometry. He served for 10 years on the National Research Council’s Committee on Vision as the joint representative of the American Optometric Association and the American Academy of Optometry. Bailey served for eight years on the editorial board of Optometry and Vision Science. He has a higher diploma of the British Optical Association from the City University in London, an MS from Indiana University, and a diploma in low vision from the American Academy of Optometry.

John A. Brabyn is a senior scientist at the Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute and the director of its Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on blindness and low vision. His interests are in rehabilitation engineering research for blind, visually impaired, deaf, and multihandicapped people; low vision research; transfer of technology to industry; and human factors engineering. He is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Currency Features Usable by the Visually Impaired. He has a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Richard V. Burkhauser is chair of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and the Sarah Gibson Blanding professor of policy analysis in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. His current research interests focus on the importance of social environment on the work outcomes of people with disabilities; how disability influences economic well-being; how Social Security reforms affect the work and economic well-being of older persons; and cross-national comparisons of the economic well-being and work of older persons. He is the head of the Panel Study on Income Dynamics Board of Overseers and on the editorial boards of The Journal of Disability Policy Studies, The Review of Income and Wealth, Labor Economics, Research on Aging, and The Journal of Applied Social Science Studies. He was a member of the Technical Panel of the 1994-1996

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×

Advisory Council on Social Security and the 1994-1996 National Academy of Social Insurance Panel on Disability Policy Reform. He is currently a member of the Ticket to Work/Work Incentives Improvement Act Advisory Board. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.

Velma Dobson is a professor in the Departments of Ophthalmology and Psychology at the University of Arizona. An experimental psychologist who specializes in the assessment of vision in infants and young children, she is currently conducting research on visual acuity and visual fields in infants and young children. She was involved in the development of the Teller acuity cards and has conducted studies of visual development in infants treated in a neonatal intensive care unit. She holds research grants from the National Eye Institute for the study of visual acuity and visual fields in infants and young children. She also collaborates on two studies funded by the National Eye Institute to examine the diagnosis and treatment of astigmatism and refractive amblyopia in Native American preschool- and school-age children. She has a PhD in experimental psychology (1975) from Brown University. She directs visual acuity testing in two multicenter studies of retinopathy of prematurity and serves as adviser for a multicenter National Eye Institute study to determine effective and cost-efficient methods for screening vision in 3- to 5-year-old children.

Richard D. Gonzalez is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. He is associate director of the department’s decision laboratory and has a joint appointment in the Department of Statistics. His research interests are in judgment and decision making, while his current focus is on generalizations of expected utility theory and developing algorithms for testing generalized theories. Drawing from traditional work in psychophysics, his research centers on how people distort probabilities in decision making. Other research interests include basic psychological measurement (psychometrics) and the development and use of statistical models in testing psychological theory. He is on the editorial boards of four journals including Psychological Review and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. He has a PhD in psychology from Stanford University.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×

Karen Jacobs is a clinical associate professor of occupational therapy at Boston University. In addition to being a registered occupational therapist, she is a board-certified professional ergonomist and the founding editor of the international and interdisciplinary journal WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment and Rehabilitation. One of her research interests is “healthy computing,” as more Americans, children and adults, spend increasing time working at computer keyboards, putting themselves at risk for repetitive strain injuries and other conditions that can result from overuse. Other research and scholarly projects include occupational safety and health for the dental professional using web-based continuing education. A fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Association, she served as president 1998-2001. She has an EdD from the University of Massachusetts.

Chris A. Johnson is director of diagnostic research and senior scientist at Devers Eye Institute in Portland, Oregon, as well as the Oregon Lions’ Anderson-Chenoweth-Ross vision research chair. He has conducted research on the visual requirements for a wide variety of occupations and currently is involved in research on diagnostic tests, especially visual field testing and analysis of peripheral visual function. He is a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Academy of Optometry, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the American Glaucoma Society, the Optical Society of America, and the International Perimetric Society. He is also a member of the Glaucoma Advisory Committee, the editorial board of the Journal of Glaucoma and Optometry and Vision Science, the scientific advisory board for the Glaucoma Foundation, and co-founder/co-chair of the North American Perimetry Society. He served on the National Research Council’s Committee on Vision 1985-1988 and on its working group on night vision. He has a PhD in psychology from the Pennsylvania State University.

Frank J. Landy is professor emeritus at the Pennsylvania State University and chief executive officer of the litigation support division of SHL/Landy Jacobs, a consulting firm. He has been an active consultant for 29 years for both public- and private-sector clients. His consulting has addressed issues of human performance in applied

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×

settings, often including issues related to vision. He has served as an expert witness in various state and federal courts and has been retained as an expert by the Department of Justice—disability rights section—to testify on issues related to vision and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor commissioned him to chair a group of scientists to investigate the effect of aging on the performance of public safety officers. He has published widely in the area of human performance and validation as well as other areas of psychology. He is a member of the Human Factors Society and the American College of Sports Medicine. He founded the journal Human Performance, served on the council of representatives of the American Psychological Association, and was president of its Division 14. He was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Performance of Military Personnel and has served as a consultant for the Institute of Medicine. He has a PhD in industrial and organizational psychology from Bowling Green State University.

Paul P. Lee is professor of ophthalmology at Duke Medical Center, senior fellow in the Duke Center on Aging and Human Development, and consultant in the Health Services Program at RAND in Santa Monica, California. He also serves as chairman of Duke Eye Care, LLC. His research activities center on collaborative efforts to examine health services issues in care delivery and to develop methods to improve the care that patients receive in the community setting. He was a contributor to the development of the National Eye Institute visual function questionnaire. He serves on the board of trustees of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the writing committee for the board recertification examination, and as an associate examiner for the American Board of Ophthalmology. He is the socioeconomics and health services section editor for the Archives of Ophthalmology and is on the editorial board of Evidence-Based Eye Care. He has an MD from the University of Michigan and a JD from Columbia University.

Gordon E. Legge is the distinguished McKnight university professor of psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive Sciences at the University of Minnesota. His primary research interests are in the problems encountered by people with low vision in performing important visual tasks, such as reading, object recognition, and spatial

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×

navigation. He has published an extensive series of articles on the psychophysics of reading, many concerned with low vision, and has developed a reading-acuity eye chart. He is currently a member of the National Advisory Eye Council at the National Institutes of Health and the Vision Research editorial board. He was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on Currency Features Usable by the Visually Impaired and was a member of the Committee on Vision 1990-1995. He has a PhD in psychology from Harvard University.

Dennis M. Levi is dean of the School of Optometry at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to this, he was the associate dean for research and graduate studies and a professor of optometry and physiological optics at the University of Houston College of Optometry. His work emphasizes the use of psychophysical techniques to study the mechanisms that limit spatial vision in both the normal and amblyopic visual systems, and he has an active research program in spatial vision and amblyopia. He was a member of the National Eye Institute Visual Science B study section and served as chair for the last two years of his tenure. He has served on the editorial boards of Vision Research and Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. He has OD, MS, and PhD degrees from the University of Houston College of Optometry.

Cynthia Owsley is professor and director of the clinical research unit in the Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and also serves as co-director of the Center for Research on Applied Gerontology there. She has been the principal investigator on several projects funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Eye Institute on aging-related vision impairment, eye disease, and their impact on everyday life. She was chair of the planning panel on vision impairment and rehabilitation for the National Eye Institute’s National Plan for 1999-2003. She is currently a member of the editorial board of Vision Research. She was a member of the Committee on Vision that produced the 1994 report Measurement of Visual Field and Visual Acuity for Disability Determination and worked with the Committee for Safe Mobility of Older Persons of the National Research Council’s Transportation Research Board. She has a PhD in experimental psychology from Cornell University.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×

Susan Van Hemel is a senior program officer in the behavioral, cognitive, and sensory sciences and education unit of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education at the National Research Council. She has 22 years of experience in studies and analytic work related to human performance, human resource management, and training. Recent work includes studies of vision requirements for commercial drivers and of commercial driver fatigue, including experimental simulator-based studies of factors affecting fatigue and a survey of driver knowledge and beliefs about fatigue. Previously she managed and performed studies related to human performance in work and everyday tasks; job performance test development; training analysis, design, and evaluation; and organizational factors in nuclear power plant safety. She is a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and its technical groups on visual perception and aging. She has a PhD in experimental psychology from the Johns Hopkins University.

Sheila K. West is El-Maghraby professor of preventive ophthalmology in the Department of Ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In addition, she holds an appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Her research has been in the field of public health ophthalmology. She has been the principal investigator on several grants researching the role of visual impairment in disability among older Americans, prevention of blindness from trachoma, and the epidemiology of cataract and macular degeneration. She has published widely in epidemiology, ophthalmology, and vision impairments and is principal investigator on the Salisbury Eye Evaluation (SEE) project. She has a PhD in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.

M. Roy Wilson is dean of the School of Medicine and vice president for health sciences at Creighton University. His major scientific contributions have been in bridging the fields of epidemiology and ophthalmology. A nationally recognized ophthalmologist, he has delivered numerous invited lectures and has published many articles, book chapters, and abstracts. He is a reviewer for all of the major ophthalmic journals, is on the editorial board of the Archives of Ophthalmology, and is section editor for the Journal of Glaucoma. He

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×

currently serves as a member of the basic and clinical science curriculum committee of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the scientific advisory committee for the American Health Assistance Foundation, and the scientific advisory boards of both the Glaucoma Foundation and the Glaucoma Research Foundation. He has an MS in epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MD from the Harvard Medical School.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Biographical Sketches." National Research Council. 2002. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10320.
×
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When children and adults apply for disability benefits and claim that a visual impairment has limited their ability to function, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) is required to determine their eligibility. To ensure that these determinations are made fairly and consistently, SSA has developed criteria for eligibility and a process for assessing each claimant against the criteria. Visual Impairments: Determining Eligibility for Social Security Benefits examines SSA's methods of determining disability for people with visual impairments, recommends changes that could be made now to improve the process and the outcomes, and identifies research needed to develop improved methods for the future. The report assesses tests of visual function, including visual acuity and visual fields whether visual impairments could be measured directly through visual task performance or other means of assessing disability. These other means include job analysis databases, which include information on the importance of vision to job tasks or skills, and measures of health-related quality of life, which take a person-centered approach to assessing visual function testing of infants and children, which differs in important ways from standard adult tests.

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