Dr Matilda Biba

Matilda is a Research Fellow at the INFANT Research Centre on the AIM-HIGH study – a study focused on assessing intellectual and motor outcomes in high-risk infants as part of the ELEVATE program. She has over 20 years of optometric clinical experience, specialising in paediatrics, with a special interest in Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI), colour vision and acquired visual function loss. She is lending her expertise to develop novel eye-tracking tasks and programs to predict cognitive outcome in young infants, and to validate and expand early eye-gaze fixation and social development platforms as part of the AIM-HIGH study.

Matilda completed her PhD thesis in clinical and occupational ophthalmology in 2014 from City University of London. Her thesis was instrumental in changing and standardising colour vision standards across the UK, USA and Europe for commercial pilots (2016) and for London Underground Train Drivers in the UK (2012). An extension of her thesis was to validate a new colour vision assessment tool in different clinical populations to detect early functional loss and better inform clinical management decisions. She was awarded the Geoffrey Hall Lightmonger’s Merit Award for her extensive PhD work in 2010.

During her PhD, she took up a Senior Lectureship and Clinical Consultancy position at Anglia Ruskin University and Addenbrooke’s University Hospital respectively (2011-2017), and co-founded Addenbrooke’s Community Paediatric Outreach Service (ACPOS) in Cambridge during her tenure. She is highly experienced in managing and designing paediatric clinical and interventional trials, engaging with different stakeholders and fostering collaborations, affording her the Early Career Investigator Presentation Award at the Pan-Ireland Ophthalmology conference in Belfast (2022).

In her spare time, she volunteers for the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes Eye Program and loves nothing more than to talk about eyes!