Sara S. Patterson

Sara S. Patterson, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and a Joint Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD). Her research focuses on understanding retinal ganglion cell diversity and their roles in visual processing. She leads the Patterson Lab at the Flaum Eye Institute and Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, specializing in adaptive optics imaging, connectomics, and retinal circuit analysis. Her work explores how neural circuits mediate visual perception and degeneration, with implications for retinal prosthetics and disease treatment.

Dr. Patterson earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Washington (2020) and a BS in Neuroscience from Dickinson College (2014). She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Rochester with Dr. David Williams (2020–2024). She has been recognized with awards including the Young Investigator Award (2022) and the Steadman Family Postdoctoral Prize (2021).

Her research investigates the structure and function of rare retinal ganglion cells, degeneration mechanisms in cortical blindness, and the role of retinal inputs in visual perception. Techniques include adaptive optics for in vivo imaging, serial block-face SEM for connectomics, and computational modeling. The lab collaborates with the Advanced Retinal Imaging Alliance (ARIA) and focuses on translating findings to human health.

• Lab Affiliations: Flaum Eye Institute, Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience
• Key Projects: Foveal ganglion cell physiology, retinal degeneration modeling, and non-invasive imaging tools

Dr. Patterson’s lab is actively hiring graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and undergraduates interested in neuroscience, engineering, or computational methods. Her work bridges basic science and clinical applications, aiming to improve therapies for vision disorders.