Professor Fiona Rowe

The Burian Lecture is provided by a distinguished IOA Orthoptist who is being honoured for lifetime scientific and evidence-based clinical contributions to orthoptics and vision science.

We are very pleased to announce that the 2025 Burian lecturer is Professor Fiona Rowe.

Professor Fiona Rowe qualified as an Orthoptist in 1990 and has maintained combined clinical and academic research activity since then. She is Professor of orthoptics at the University of Liverpool, and Director for the VISION research group. She is the Past President of the Society for Research in Rehabilitation and a mentor for the National Institute of Health Research integrated clinical academic training pathway. She is the orthoptic representative on the Council for the International Strabismological Association and a member of the European NeuroOphthalmology Society Low Vision group.

Her particular research interests include acquired brain injury, visual field evaluation and control of ocular alignment. Research projects include chief investigator for numerous large-scale studies and trials including the visual consequences of stroke (VIS study), the VISION and SEARCH trials of interventions for hemianopia, the IVIS study (prevalence, incidence and impact of stroke-related visual impairment) and the VISA study (development and validation of vision screening tools for stroke and brain injury). Other projects include evaluating the impact of knowledge of visual impairment to the treatment choices made by therapists in the care of stroke patients, evaluation of ward based visual impairment assessment and referral pathways, and the comparison of static and kinetic perimetry strategies.

Professor Rowe is the author of two textbooks: ‘Clinical Orthoptics’ and ‘Visual fields via the visual pathway’, co-author on seven book chapters, and has presented and published her research extensively. Further research details can be found on:

https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/population-health-sciences/staff/fiona-rowe/