Maria Vinas

2019 OSA Ambassador Maria Vinas received her MSC in Optical Engineering and PhD in Physics (December, 2015) from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). She carried out her predoctoral research at the Institute of Optics of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), in the field of Visual Optics, working on novel techniques based on Adaptive Optics to image the eye and study visual function and neural adaptation. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Visual Optics and Biophotonics lab at the Institute of Optics (CSIC).

Vinas has worked in R&D institutions for over 8 years. Her research has been focused in the use of Adaptive Optics (AO) technologies, used first in astronomical applications and used for the last 20 years to study vision, for different ophthalmic applications. During her thesis, she developed a sophisticated polychromatic AO system to go further in the study of both, visual perception and performance, in polychromatic conditions under a very wide range of artificially-simulatedconditions. The research focused on the use of AO techniques to study the effect of specific monochromatic aberrations and their combinations on vision, to test neural adaptation to those aberrations and their correction, to measure chromatic aberrations of the eye in normal and pseudophakic eyes, and to test vision with simulated multifocal solutions for presbyopia.

Dr. Vinas is author of >20 scientific papers (9 of them as first author) in high impact journals (h-index: 6, >150 citations, google scholar) and > 30 communications in national and international conferences. She is also reviewer of different high impact peer-reviewed journals, member of different scientific societies, as well as outreach societies. She has also enjoyed different pre- and post-doctoral stays, which have led to new scientific publications and collaborative projects. She also served as a teaching assistant at the Department of Optics of the UCM (80hrs), and supervised 4 MSc & 2 PhD theses.

During her PhD studies she has been awarded with different recognitions from international scientific associations (OSA, ARVO). Dr. Vinas is well acquainted to international projects (Marie Skłodowska Curie programs, ERC programs), as well as projects with international ophthalmic companies, with excellent scientific results. In June 2015 she become a founding partner of a spin-off company of the CSIC, 2EyesVision SL. Furthermore, Dr. Vinas was a leading member of the IO-CSIC OSA Student Chapter (IOSA), where she participated in outreach activities to promote scientific knowledge and helped managing the chapter as well as associated projects serving as President, VP and treasurer.