Graduate Student - PhD Candidate, Madison

Postgraduate studies in United States, 2020

Odalys graduated in Veterinary Medicine in 2016 from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Early on her professional career, specifically during her last year externship at Texas A&M University, she developed an interest in comparative ophthalmology. Since her graduation, Odalys attended several international ophthalmology-related meetings like ECVO, ACVO and ARVO. In 2019 she completed a rotating internship in one of the biggest small animal hospitals in Spain (Ars Veterinaria) during which she was involved in a project related to funduscopy teaching models, presented it at the ECVO conference in 2019. After that, she decided to pause her clinical training in favor of basic research to contribute to the scientific community and get a better understanding of this fascinating world of eye diseases. As a graduate student pursuing a PhD in the McLellan lab (University of Wisconsin-Madison), she is working on multiple projects related to glaucoma in translational research, including imaging the aqueous humor outflow pathway via electron microscopy and tissue clearing, assessing extracellular matrix proteins via immunolabelling and trabecular meshwork cell culture and applying advanced imaging techniques. Her dream is to pursue a vision research career as veterinary clinician – scientist.