College Life Fellow appointed an OBE in the King’s New Year’s Honours List

A pioneering College member, Professor Shahina Pardhan FCOptom, Director of Anglia Ruskin University’s Vision and Eye Research Institute, has been appointed an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the King’s New Year’s Honours List for services to optometry and preventing blindness.  

Professor Pardhan became the UK’s first ever female professor of optometry in 2001. Having graduated with a First-Class Honours and awarded the Best Student Prize from the University of Bradford, she was supported by a PhD scholarship from The College of Optometrists. 

Professor Pardhan has since published more than 200 research papers on diabetic retinopathy, low vision, dual sensory loss, auditory cues in vision impairment, ageing, and visual short-term memory. The impact of her research on reducing the risk of blindness due to diabetes is far reaching, and includes the UK, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria and Pakistan. 

Professor Pardhan has received numerous accolades and awards throughout her career. She received an Asian Women of Achievement Award in 2001, and four years later she received the Asian Jewel Award in the healthcare and education category. In 2019, Professor Pardhan was named in the Ophthalmologist Power list as a champion of change.  

In 2022, she was named in the top 2% of scientists in the world by Stanford University and received the Arthur Bennett Prize from The College of Optometrists for outstanding international research for her work on the global impact of diabetic retinopathy in eye health and vision. In 2023 Professor Pardhan received the award of Honorary Doctor of Health from her alma mater, the University of Bradford. In 2024, she became a Life Fellow of The College of Optometrists.