Writtle University College and ARU have merged. Writtle’s full range of college, degree, postgraduate and short courses will still be delivered on the Writtle campus. See our guide to finding Writtle information on this site.

Katherine Howard

Lecturer Practitioner, Course leader

Faculty:
Faculty of Science and Engineering
School:
Vision and Hearing Sciences
Location:
Cambridge
Areas of Expertise:
Dispensing , Business Management
Research Supervision:
Yes

Katherine is an experienced Dispensing Optician and leads both our FdSc Ophthalmic Dispensing course and BSc (Hons) Ophthalmic Dispensing. She has worked for several years as a Manager and Regional Trainer for David Clulow Opticians (Luxottica), with experience in a range of independent and multiple practices.

[email protected]

Background

Katherine comes from a family of opticians and is the fourth generation in her family to train in the optical industry. She studied full time on the BSc Ophthalmic Dispensing with Business Management course and graduated in 2012 with awards for ‘Meritorious performance in the Ophthalmic Dispensing degree’ and ‘Best overall performance in Optical Dispensing 3 with Practice Management within the Optical Management degree’. She was also honoured to perform the closing speech for the graduation ceremony.

While studying Katherine was employed by Specsavers. On graduating from Anglia Ruskin she then completed her pre-registration training at an independent opticians, before joining David Clulow Opticians in 2013 as a registered qualified Dispensing Optician. During this time Katherine took on a dual role as Practice Manager and Regional Trainer.

Since joining the university in 2019 Katherine has gone on to complete her PGCertHE and become a FHEA.

Katherine is now the course leader for both the FdSc Ophthalmic Dispensing course and BSc (Hons) Ophthalmic Dispensing.

Research interests

Teaching and assessment methods for dispensing opticians

Teaching

  • Course lead BSc (Hons) Ophthalmic Dispensing
  • Practice Management and Ocular Pathology
  • Course lead FdSc registerable Ophthalmic Dispensing
  • Preliminary Ophthalmic Dispensing with Mathematics

Qualifications

  • BSc (Hons) Optical management
  • PGCert in HEA

Memberships, editorial boards

  • Fellow, Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO)
  • Registrant of the General Optical Council

Media experience

BBC interview, Sliced bread
UV protection on Sun spectacles
Are Expensive sunglasses worth it? 14/07/2022
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00194g9