Answer: The VCDC fix-it person. Martha does whatever needs to be done!
"I have worked at the VCDC since Fall of 2016. In that time, I have had many roles – receptionist, administrative assistant, testing technician, vision therapy trainee, and now, special projects coordinator and associate vision therapist. I did all of this while earning my Bioengineering degree (with honors) from the University of Maryland in 2021.
While I still help out the VCDC when I can, I am a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins Medical School. I am working under Dr. Amy Bastian, who focuses on Human Motion Analysis – particularly the cerebellar implications in the development of movement in children and the disruption of controlled movement with neurological impairments. While I am still figuring out my thesis, I know for certain that it will involve vision – and perhaps the integration of other senses! My true goal is to use the findings from my research to help patients receive the care they need.
Since Don Quixote is part of my heritage, my quixotic dream is to create research that can be used to verify vision therapy. So in the future, if your insurance gives you a hard time about the medical necessity of doing vision therapy, I want to be your champion... with FACTS and DATA!
Like I said, I love to solve problems. As a kid, I used to play with complex jigsaw puzzles and could remember the edges of each of the 20 pieces I picked up, and somehow, I would have a sense of which matched with which. Not to sound arrogant, back then, my strategy was very much trial and error. With time, however, I learned to understand there are much better ways of arranging pieces – by the edges, by the tonality of colors - but there is something undeniably comforting about focusing on the tiny, one-on-one problems. Now, I love solving problems that improve entire systems and flows... one problem at a time.