Denise Valenti

OD, FAAO

Dr. Valenti received her degree and gerontology training from Oregon State University. Her optometry education is from Southern California College of Optometry where she did internships with the Santa Monica Center for Partially Sighted and the New York Lighthouse for the Blind. While at SCCO, she worked as the teaching assistant in visual fields and low vision with Dr. Frank Brazelton. Upon graduation, she completed a low vision rehabilitation residency under the direction of Dr. Randy Jose at the University of Houston College of Optometry. While at the UHCO, she supervised fourth year interns in the House Calls Clinic Geriatric Clinic. Dr. Valenti, along with colleagues, submitted and received federal funding to write and develop the curriculum related to aging that would be used in colleges and schools of optometry nationwide and in Canada. More recently, her work is in the visual system, neurodegenerative diseases and cannabis. Dr. Valenti has participated in a variety of research activities including sitting on the National Institutes of Health Study Sections including Bioengineering of Neuroscience, Vision and Low Vision Technologies. She has undertaken pharmaceutical funded research related to Alzheimer's disease and Namenda efficacy and NIH funded research regarding OCT imaging and Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Valenti has had additional training as an MGH/MIT/HMS Functional MRI Fellow at the Martino's Center for Biomedical Imaging in Boston, Massachusetts and participated in the yearlong seminar series in the Boston University Sleep Disorders Center Fellowship program. She reviews for a variety of journals related to vision and neurosciences. She currently works with a technology to determine fitness to drive after cannabis consumption; IMMAD-Impairment Measurement Marijuana and Driving and is funded through an NIH NIDA SBIR contract.