UK student scopes third prize

Glasgow Caledonian University optometry student Romana Khaliq (pictured) has scoped third prize in this year’s CooperVision force Student of the Year awards.

The contact lens manufacturer named Izabela Garaszczuk, a student from the Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland, as the events overall winner.

The Force (Future Ocular Research Creativity Event) final took place at CooperVision’s Centre of Innovation in Budapest, Hungary last month (16 April), with students and educators from nine countries taking part.

Through the event, Ms Khaliq, who was named as CooperVision’s UK Student of the Year last year, was recognised for her study on tear evaporation rates between hydrogel and silicone hydrogel materials under different environmental conditions.

Supervised by Dr Ian Pearce, Ms Khaliq measured tear evaporation at high and low relative humidity using two instruments, the ServoMed research evaporimeter and the Delfin VapoMeter, a new clinical evaporimeter. While the ServoMed device showed no significant difference between materials within 30 minutes of insertion, with the Delfin, hydrogel lenses did increase evaporation, but the SiHy lenses showed no significant change in evaporation rate.

Hosted annually, Force sees students from colleges and universities across Europe invited to undertake a research project on a contact lens-related subject of their choice and to present their findings. Winners from each country proceed to the Force European final for a chance to become CooperVision Force Student of Year.

Last year’s overall Force winner, Fiona Buckmaster, who was also from Glasgow Caledonian University, attended this year’s final to describe her experiences since winning. She had attended the Nederlands Contactlens Congress in March and has spent time volunteering in Africa.