Dr. Shrikant Bharadwaj trained as a vision scientist at the School of Optometry, University of California, Berkeley, and the Indiana University School of Optometry. As a DBT Ramalingaswami fellow in 2009, he established the Visual Optics and Psychophysics Laboratory at the L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) with the agenda to understand how the optics of the eye influences human visual perception. Dr. Bharadwaj uses a combination of experimental, behavioral, and computational techniques to address this research agenda.
Dr. Bharadwaj actively publishes his research work in international vision science journals, and serves on the editorial board of Nature’s Scientific Reports, Optometry and Vision Science, PLOS One (Public Library of Science) and the Indian Journal of Ophthalmology. He also served as a committee member on the WHO development group for refractive error interventions and was awarded the Jaggi Optometrist of the year award in 2021 by the Optometry Council of India.
During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellowship, Dr. Bharadwaj is working to understand visual perception in patients with an eye disease called Keratoconus. This disease distorts the eye’s cornea, causing profound loss of vision and quality of life in the patients. Through his research, Dr. Bharadwaj aspires to develop a comprehensive psychophysical assessment of visual functions in this disease, to dissect the roles of optics and neurology in vision loss using adaptive optics, and to optimize patient’s vision through personalized contact lens designs and perceptual vision training.