Staff Profile

I completed my MPhys and PhD in the Centre for Advanced Instrumentation at Durham University and then took up postdoc positions in Durham and Oxford, spanning visual perception and optical instrumentation. After a Career Development Lectureship in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, I joined the Biosciences Institute at Newcastle University as a Research Fellow supported by the Reece Foundation and was later awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

My research combines optical instrumentation and psychophysical research, developing adaptive optics systems to study human vision – from imaging the light sensitive cells in the retina in vivo to studying the impact of refractive disorders on visual performance. I am passionate about interdisciplinary research, particularly the interplay between the development of new optical and imaging techniques and the generation of new understanding in the life sciences.

My research interests lie in the functioning of the visual system, which undertakes sophisticated computations to process the vast amount of information entering our eyes. Far from being passive windows on the world, our eyes move to dynamically sample the visual scene and extract relevant information for the task at hand. My fellowship will investigate the relationship between the visual input, eye movement behaviour and visual performance in the healthy visual system, and how these processes disrupted by disorders of the eye.

• Young LK, Smithson HE. Emulated retinal image capture (ERICA) to test, train and validate processing of retinal images. Scientific Reports 2021, 11, 11225.
• Christou JC, Girkin J, Kulcsar C, Young LK. Feature issue introduction: applications of adaptive optics. Optics Express 2021, 29(8), 11533-11537.
• Kordek D, Young LK, Kremláček J. Comparison between optical and digital blur using near visual acuity. Scientific Reports 2021, 11, 3437.
• White R, Gasper G, McLeish T, Tanner B, Harvey J, Sønnesyn S, Young L, Smithson H. Magnifying Grains of Sand, Seeds, and Blades of Grass: Optical Effects in Robert Grosseteste’s De iride (On the Rainbow) (circa 1228–1230). ISIS 2021, 112(1), 93–107.
• Hauperich A-K, Young LK, Smithson HE. What makes a microsaccade? A review of 70 years research prompts a new detection method. Journal of Eye movement Research 2020, 12(6).
• Pathak B, Young LK, Smithson HE. Simultaneous Optimisation of Confocal and Non-confocal Images in an AOSLO with a Reconfigurable Aperture Pattern. In: Medical Image Understanding and Analysis. MIUA 2020. 2020, Oxford, United Kingdom: Springer, Cham.
• Smithson HE, Young LK, Hauperich A-K, Hexley AC, Regan SE. Are fixational eye movements adaptive? Two tests of the interaction between photoreceptor sampling, eye movements and psychophysical performance. In: Fall Vision Meeting. 2019, Washington DC: Journal of Vision.
• Shah M, Young LK, Downes SM, Smithson HE. Investigating the clinical use of adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy in patients with Stargardt disease. In: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting. 2019, Vancouver, Canada: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.
• Young LK, Smithson HE. A self-organising photoreceptor mosaic simulation for studying spatial sampling in the retina. In: AVA Christmas Meeting. 2018, Queen Mary University of London: Sage.
• Young LK, Morris TJ, Saunter CD, Smithson HE. Compact, modular and in-plane AOSLO for high-resolution retinal imaging. Biomedical Optics Express 2018, 9(9), 4275-4293.
• Young LK, Jarrin M, Saunter CD, Quinlan RA, Girkin JM. Non-invasive in vivo quantification of the developing optical properties and graded index of the embryonic eye lens using SPIM. Biomedical Optics Express 2018, 9(5), 2176-2188.
• Buckley C, Carvalho MT, Young LK, Rider SA, McFadden C, Berlage C, Verdon RF, Taylor JM, Girkin JM, Mullins JJ. Precise spatio-temporal control of rapid optogenetic cell ablation with mem-KillerRed in Zebrafish. Scientific Reports 2017, 7, 5096.
• Young LK, Hauperich A-K, Morris TJ, Saunter CD, Smithson HE. Recording fixational eye movements with a new AOSLO: Simulation, measurement and evaluation. In: OSA Fall Vision Meeting. 2017, Rochester New York: Journal of Vision.
• Marcos S, Werner JS, Burns SA, Merigan WH, Artal P, Atchison DA, Hampson KM, Legras R, Lundstrom L, Yoon G, Carroll J, Choi SS, Doble N, Dubis AM, Dubra A, Elsner A, Jonnal R, Miller DT, Paques M, Smithson HE, Young LK, Zhang Y, Campbell M, Hunter J, Metha A, Palczewska G, Schallek J, Sincich LC. Vision science and adaptive optics, the state of the field. Vision Research 2017, 132, 3-33.
• Jarrin M, Young L, Wu W, Girkin JM, Quinlan RA. In vivo, Ex Vivo, and In Vitro Approaches to Study Intermediate Filaments in the Eye Lens. Methods in Enzymology 2016, 568, 581-611.
• Young LK, Smithson HE. Critical band masking reveals the effects of optical distortions on the channel mediating letter identification. Frontiers in Psychology 2014, 5, 1060.
• Young LK, Love GD, Smithson HE. Accounting for the phase, spatial frequency and orientation demands of the task improves metrics based on the visual Strehl ratio. Vision Research 2013, 90, 57-67.
• Young LK, Love GD, Smithson HE. Different aberrations raise contrast thresholds for single-letter identification in line with their effect on cross-correlation-based confusability. Journal of Vision 2013, 13(7), 1-14.
• Young LK, Love GD, Smithson HE. Going beyond the wavefront: Improved predictions of performance obtained by accounting for the spatial frequency requirements of the task. In: Fall Vision Meeting. 2012, Journal of Vision.
• Young LK, Love GD, Liversedge SP, Smithson HE. How does the optical quality of the eye affect letter recognition and reading? Task-specific effects are revealed for optical distortions of text. In: European Conference on Visual Perception. 2012, Perception.
• Young LK, Love GD, Smithson HE. How feasible is it to capture the functional consequences of the optical distortions of the eye in a single metric?. In: AVA/BMVA meeting. 2012, Perception.
• Young LK, Liversedge SP, Myers RM, Love GD, Smithson HE. Not all aberrations are equal: Reading impairment depends on aberration type and magnitude. Journal of Vision 2011, 11(13), 20.
• Guzmán D, Javier de Cos Juez F, Lasheras FS, Myers R, Young L. Deformable mirror model for open-loop adaptive optics using multivariate adaptive regression splines. Optics Express 2010, 18(7), 6492-6505.