The Edmund Arthur Graduate School Application Support Fund has been unveiled at a ceremony presided over by the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Prof Ellis Owusu Dabo. The support is for students of the Department of Optometry and Visual Science desirous of furthering their studies in the United States of America.

Dr. Edmund Arthur, a tenure track Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA, and an alumnus of the Department of Optometry and Visual Science, College of Science, KNUST, said he was motivated to give back to his alma mater by establishing the support fund to ease the challenges and difficulties prospective graduate students go through in raising the initial financing for the application process for studies in the US. He intimated that he hugely benefited from the generosity of Dr Kwadwo Owusu Akuffo without which he could not have raised the funds needed for the application process.

With this in the background, Dr. Arthur stressed he felt the need to offer a similar helping hand to others to brighten their chance of furthering their studies in visual science/physiological optics in the US to build the critical mass of academics and clinicians through graduate studies. He stressed that offering a helping hand through this support is a must as his widow’s mite to the Department of Optometry and Visual Science.

The application support is a package for $2,000.00 each year for three (3) applicants per year selected by the Department for five (5) years amounting to $10,000.00 intended to cover the application, the visa and the SEVIS fees. The selection process, Dr. Arthur stressed, should not necessarily target the top three brilliant students but people with a good story of why they would most benefit from the support.

Unveiling the Fund, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Prof Ellis Owusu-Dabo, commended Dr. Arthur for his kind gesture emphasizing that it was thoughtful of him to stretch a hand to his former Department. He prayed that all those who benefited from the support would also look back and provide similar assistance to others.

Prof. Amekudzi, the Provost of the College of Science, and Dr. Kwadwo Owusu Akuffo, the Head of the Department of Optometry and Visual Science, showed their appreciation to Dr Arthur for instituting the fund which was consistent with the strategic partnership and collaboration being championed by Management of the University.

Dr. Arthur obtained his Doctor of Optometry (OD) degree from the KNUST in 2014 and followed it up with a Ph.D. in Vision Science from Indiana University, Bloomington. From 2018 to 2021, doing two postdoctoral fellowships at the Quantitative Imaging and Eye-Brain Research lab at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, University of Miami, and the Butler Hospital of Memory and Aging Program affiliated with the Brown University and the University of Rhode Island focusing on retinal biomarkers for early diagnosis of cognitive impairment. In recognition of his accomplishments, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry (FAAO) in 2019 and has served as a peer-reviewer for numerous esteemed scientific journals.