Andrew Harris was elected to Council in 2010.  Mr. Harris was until recently the President of the Optometrists Association of Australia, having just completed his term commenced in 2007.  Mr. Harris has served on the boards of both the National and State Divisions of the OAA over the last fifteen years.  Mr. Harris has also been a board member of the National Vision Research Institute since 2006.  Mr. Harris' career highlights include working as a Senior Clinician at the Univesity of Melbourne Department of Vision Sciences, as a Consultant at the Royal Melbourne Hospital eye clinic and in Aboriginal communities in outback NSW.  Mr. Harris  has run his own private optometry practice in North Melbourne for the past 20 years.
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Dr Fletcher was elected to Council in May 2007.  Dr Fletcher also served as Chair of the Clinical Vision Research Australia Committee of Management from 2007 to 2010.  She is currently an associate lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in the University of Melbourne, with primary roles in teaching vision to medical students as well as running an active research program examining the causes of retinal diseases.  Dr Fletcher spent 8 years in clinical optometry prior to her current academic role.
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Ms Jane Duffy BScOptom LLB (Hons) PGCertOcTher

Jane Duffy was elected to Council in 2010.  She is in private optometry practice in North Fitzroy.  Ms Duffy was the foundation executive officer with the Optometry Council of Australia and New Zealand for 13 years.  She is a member of the new National Optometry Board of Australia, and has also served on registration boards for optometrists, osteopaths and pharmacists in Victoria. In 2005, Ms Duffy was awarded the Ivor J Lewis Medal by the Victorian Division of the Optometrists Association Australia for outstanding service to the profession.
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Mr.Fuller was appointed to Council in 2010.  He is a member of the Clinical Services committee.  Bryan has previously served on the council of the OAA (Victorian Division), and is a current board member of the ProVision Eyecare Group.  He has been a provider to the Victorian Eyecare Service since its inception.  He is a partner in an independent optometry practice in Echuca.
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Professor Konrad Pesudovs BScOptom PhD PGDipAdvClinOptom MCOptom

Professor Pesudovs was elected to Council in 2010.  He is the Foundation Chair of Optometry and Vision science at Flinders University.  His past governance experience includes roles as a Councillor of the SA division of the Optometrists Association of Australia from 1992-1996, as Vice President from 1993.  Professor Pesudovs was also on the committee of the SA Chapter of the Contact Lens Society of Australia from 1993-2000, President between 1994-1996.  Professor Pesudovs is a member of the editioral boards of many professional journals including the Journal of Optometry.
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Professor Nathan Efron BScOptom, PhD, DSc, FAAO (Dip CCLRT), FIACLE, FCCLSA, FBCLA

Nathan Efron completed his BScOptom and PhD at the University of Melbourne in 1981, and after two years of post-doctoral studies in Berkeley, USA and Sydney, he returned to Melbourne as  lecturer then senior lecturer responsible for contact lens education.  In 1990 he took up the foundation Chair of Clinical Optometry at the University of Manchester, England, and established a contact lens research and consultancy unit known as Eurolens Research. In Manchester, he served as Head of Department from 1992-97 and Dean of Research for the university from 2001-2004, and was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Science in 1995.  Professor Efron returned to Australia in 2006 and joined the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation in the School of Optometry at the Queensland University of Technology, as Research Professor.  At QUT he established the Anterior Eye Laboratory and is currently exploring the potential for corneal confocal microscopy of the sub-basal nerve plexus to serve as a marker of diabetic neuropathy.  He has served as President of both the Contact Lens Society of Australia (1981) and the British Contact Lens Association (1997).  He lectures extensively world-wide, particularly in the field of the ocular response to contact lens wear, and has published over 650 scientific papers, abstracts and textbook chapters, and has written/edited 6 books — his most recent being ‘Contact Lens Practice, 2nd Edition’ (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010). Professor Efron has won a number of prestigious awards, including the Optician journal’s ‘Contribution to Optics’ award (UK, 1997), the Gold Medal of the British Contact Lens Association (UK, 2001) and the Max Schapero Award (USA, 2003).

Ms Elisse Higginbotham BOptom, MOptom, PGCertOcTher

Elisse graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2002, after which she completed a Masters degree from the University of NSW. She
worked for four years in central Victoria, before moving to her current position in a suburban private practice in 2006, where
she works primarily with paediatric patients. She has recently commenced sessional work at the Australian College.

Professor Robert Saint BSc (Hons) PhD

Professor Saint was appointed to Council in 2009, as the representative from the University of Melbourne. Professor Saint gained his BSc(Hons) and PhD degrees from the University of Adelaide and then worked as a Research Fellow at Stanford University. On returning to Australia, he worked as a scientist at the Walter and Eliza Hall Inst. and CSIRO before moving to the University of Adelaide, where he pioneered research into cell cycle control during animal development. In1994 he was appointed Professor and Head of Genetics at the University of Adelaide before moving to the ANU as Professor of Molecular Genetics and Evolution in the Research School of Biological Sciences. He served on the ARC Biological Sciences Panel from 1995-1997 and was an ARC Special Investigator from 1997-1999. From 2000- 2008 he was Director of the ARC Special Research Centre for the Molecular Genetics of Development (CMGD). He is a Member of the Asia-Pacific International Molecular Biology Network and was awarded the Julian Wells Medal of the Lorne Genome Conference and the President's medal of the Aust. New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology. He was also the MJD White lecturer of the Genetics Society of Australasia. He is a member of the ARC College of Experts (2008-2010) and was Chair of the ARC Biological Science and Biotechnology panel in 2009. His research centres on the genetic regulation of cell division and cell migration during animal development.  Professor Saint is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne. 
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Rod Baker BScOptometry FACO Cert Rehab Part Sight GCOT

Rod Baker is an optometrist with special interests in children’s vision and public health.  Graduating from the University of Melbourne in 1988 he was appointed Head of Paediatric Services at the Australian College of Optometry in 1994 and has held other positions at the College including Director of Continuing Education and served for several years as a member of the then Board of Continuing Education.  He was a clinical teacher at the University of Melbourne for 10 years where he lectured on children’s vision to optometry students and coordinated post graduate clinical training programs.  He has lectured to optometrists and diverse audiences across health, education and welfare sectors throughout Australian and internationally.  He has served as a director and President of Optometrists Association Victorian and has been a member of the National Board of the OAA.  His professional career has included diverse experiences providing optometry in remote areas of Papua New Guinea, training nurse educators in South Africa in primary eye care, providing services to in-patients at the Thomas Embling Forensic Mental Health Hospital and singing in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  His current practice is based in Sunbury Victoria, the nearest country town to Melbourne.

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Professor Sarah Hosking came to the ACO in March 2010 as Director of the National Vision Research Institute. Professor Hosking previously worked at the Centre for Eye Research Australia and is Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Melbourne. Having trained in the UK as an optometrist at City University London and Moorfields Eye Hospital, she completed her PhD at the Department of Ophthalmology at Manchester University, following which she commenced her academic career at Aston University in Birmingham in 1996. During that period Sarah had numerous roles including Clinical Director and Postgraduate Director, founder and Managing Director of the Aston Academy of Life Sciences, (a $20m research hospital on the University's campus) and concurrently held a non executive board directorship in a $1.5bn per year NHS Trust. Until 2009, Sarah was Professor of Optometry at both Aston University Birmingham and City University London. In addition to her ongoing role as Professor in the department of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne, she currently holds honorary professorships in optometry at City University London and in ophthalmology at Shanxi University China. She became a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in 2009.  Professor Hosking is a thought leader for the Creative Innovation conference 2010-2011 and actively supports Save the Children Australia where she is Chairman of the Victorian State Council.
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Ms Clare Escott BSc ACA 
ACO Company Secretary

Clare Escott was appointed as General Manager Finance & Corporate Services and Company Secretary in December 2010.  Clare is a qualified Chartered Accountant who has a wide range of experience, having worked in both private practice and the public sector over the last 20 years.   Most recently Clare held the position of Director of Corporate Services for North Down Borough Council, a local authority in Northern Ireland.  In this role, she headed up a team of over 50 staff and was responsible for leading the delivery of Finance, Human Resources, ICT, Procurement and Member Support activities across all Council Departments.  
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