AVA Awards Recipients Report - Tracey Brandwood - 2009

Geoffrey J. Burton Memorial Award

The main purpose of my visit was to present at the 9th annual Vision Sciences Society meeting. However, it was also the perfect opportunity to return to the Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, to give a presentation on what I have been working on during my PhD. I was honoured to receive an invitation from Professor Robert Allison to fill their usual Friday afternoon seminar slot and so finished off a successful trip to VSS with a trip to the CVR.

Visiting and in particular taking part in VSS was a fantastic experience. Although I was over come with nerves before giving my oral presentation I found it to be an extremely valuable experience. I gained a lot from the visit: Particularly making contacts and gaining valuable feedback about my work, as well as learning a lot about current visual perception research and corresponding activities being conducted throughout the world. I was particularly interested in meeting with Hugo Bruggeman and William Warren. I have read a lot of their work and was intrigued to get their opinion on my own, particularly since it seems to go against what they were presenting. It was great to get their perspective as well as that of others who are well known for their research on the visual guidance of locomotion and prism adaptation.

Through chatting with presenters during the poster sessions I also made several contacts with researchers who are conducting patient research similar to my own. Since I am just about to begin my patient experiment it was great to hear their opinion on my paradigm as well as getting their tips on recruiting patients and possible hurdles that I may have to over come.

My trip to VSS completely fulfilled and even exceeded my expectations. My experience there has enriched my knowledge of my own area as well as other interesting research taking place around the world. Furthermore, not only were the posters and talks informative the ‘Demo Night’ and ‘Illusion of the Year’ contest were both fun and interesting events, as well as the more social events such as the infamous glow stick party.

The trip that followed to the CVR was also an interesting and valuable one. I was able to present an extension of the research that I presented at VSS as well as give an indication of what I am currently working on and what I will be working on in the near future. It was great to get some valuable feedback on my research from some very prominent vision scientists. It was also great to get a tour of the labs there and to catch up on what research is being conducted there since I left a few years ago.

To conclude, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those at AVA who were involved in awarding me with the GJB memorial award. It enabled me to experience all of what was outlined above and will continue to be beneficial in the future as I maintain contact with the researchers that I met.