Thomas T. Norton

Thomas T. Norton is an American research scientist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where he is a professor in the Department Of Vision Sciences with a secondary appointment in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences' Department of Psychology. His research largely focuses on the emmetropia mechanism of the eye (which matches axial length with optical power to produce clear vision).

Norton's research has resulted in his presenting numerous lectures around the world in places such as Singapore, Taiwan, China, Switzerland, France and Australia.

Biography

Thomas T. Norton was born to parents Lydia Kitt Norton and John Van Schaik Norton on February 22, 1943 in Columbia, TN. The family moved to Greenwich (CT) while Dr. Norton was still an infant and remained there until moving to Milwaukee, WI prior to Dr. Norton's freshman year of high school.

Norton attended two years of high school at Milwaukee Country Day School, boarding for a portion of his final year after his parents returned to Connecticut. He then returned to Greenwich for his final two years of high school before attending Yale University, where he received a B.S. in psychology. During his time at Yale, Norton first worked in the field of scientific research in the lab of the Robert Galambos.

While Norton was attending Yale, his parents moved to Washington D.C. During a visit to Washington, Norton attended a party at the home of his parents' friends, the Edsons, meeting his future wife Carol Walters, a student at Pennsylvania State University who had grown up in the District. Norton and Walters wed on July 26, 1969 in the District of Columbia.

Following his graduation from Yale, Norton attended the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked for and studied under Donald Lindsley, eventually receiving his PhD in Psychology. Norton then received a post-doctoral fellowship in physiology in the lab of Robert Sprague at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1973, Norton became an associate professor of psychology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he would remain for 5 years. This period saw the birth of his first child on July 4, 1975.

After 5 years at Duke, Norton received an offer for a tenure tack position running his own laboratory at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)'s School of Optometry, where he began working in late 1978. March 20, 1979 saw the arrival of his second child. As of June, 2009, Norton remains at UAB, in the School of Optometry.

Scholarly activity

Teaching

Norton current teaches the following courses at UAB for the School of Optometry:

• Optometry Professional Program - VS 123, Psychophysical Assessment of Visual Function
• Vision Science Graduate Program - VIS SCI 748, Central Visual Mechanisms II

Research

Norton studies the neurobiological mechanism that operate in the juvenile eye to match axial length to the optical power, producing eyes in good focus, known as (emmetropia). The goals of his research are to learn how emmetropia is normally produced, how the emmetropization mechanism is disrupted to produce myopia or hyperopia, and how to PReVENT myopia from developing in children.

Accoding to his laboratory web site, "He uses optical, ultrasound, histological and biochemical and molecular biology techniques to study this in tree shrews, mammals closely related to primates. It appears that a vision-dependent retinal signal during postnatal development controls the axial elongation rate by controlling the biochemical makeup and biomechanical properties of the sclera.

Current studies are investigating changes in mRNA levels and protein levels in the retina and sclera of eyes that are developing an induced myopia to understand the signaling pathways that control axial length. Norton is currently principal investigator of NIH/NEI grant EY05922. In addition, Norton and colleagues are developing the tree shrew as an animal model for glaucoma."

Norton is also a founding member of, and continuing participant in, the Correction of Myopia Evaluation Trial (COMET). COMET is a large scale attempt to find more effective means to slow the growth of myopia in near sighted juveniles.

Publications

As of June 2009, Dr. Norton has been published 62 scientific articles in peer reviewed journals such as Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Vision Research, Optometry and Vision Science, Archives of Ophthalmology, and Experimental Eye Research. A complete list with links to each individual article can be found at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=DetailsSearch&Term=Norton+TT[Author]

Honors and awards

Honors in Psychology, Yale University, 1965 (Dr. Robert Galambos, mentor)

Sigma Xi, Associate Member, 1965; Member, 1973

Ph.D. with Distinction, UCLA, 1970 (Dr. Donald B. Lindsley, advisor)

N.I.H. Postdoctoral Fellow, 1970-72 (Dr. James M. Sprague, sponsor)

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow, 1973-75

Visiting Professor, Institut für Anatomie, Fribourg, Switzerland, June - September, 1982

Nominee: Student Basic Science Teaching Award, School of Optometry, May, 1994

Fellow, American Academy of Optometry, 1997-present

Recipient, UAB President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1998

Amcon Visiting Professor, School of Optometry University of Missouri, St. Louis, 2001

Recipient, Basic Science Teaching Award, UAB Chapter, Am. Optometric Student Association, 2003

Speaker at Univ. of Calgary, funded by the Heritage Foundation of Alberta, Canada, September, 2003

Keynote Speaker, 10th International Myopia Conference, Cambridge, UK, August 2004

Fellow, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, 2009