A serendipitous moment in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Auckland led to a dream gift for BOptom graduate-turned-researcher Jordan Cooper. Concerned about funding Cooper’s PhD, his supervisor and mentor, Professor Jennifer Craig, head of the Ocular Surface Laboratory, shared her frustrations with a colleague, Auckland optometrist and department research fellow Grant Watters.
Fortunately, Watters was facing a dilemma of his own: how to spend a significant bequest for a philanthropic healthcare donation, made by his father, who died more than a year ago. The result was the establishment of the Syd Watters Memorial PhD Scholarship.
Syd had glaucoma and macular degeneration, said Watters and, on his last trip to Auckland, he had attended Prof Craig’s inaugural professorship lecture in May 2021 as Watters was then part of her research team. “He was very impressed with the work she was doing, so when Jen told me about Jordan’s PhD needing funding, it was a bit of no-brainer really. My dad would have been thrilled to help someone in this area, especially someone of Jordan’s calibre.”
