Sena Gocuk Awarded the 2025 Emerging Scientist Award

This national award aims to foster growth and development of early career researchers working in inherited retinal disease research. As an early researcher, Sena has demonstrated excellence in research, leadership and advocacy.

Sena is a passionate optometrist and postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and the University of Melbourne. Her research focus is on retinal conditions, with a research direction focusing on female carriers of X-linked inherited retinal diseases (IRD). Sena’s research unraveled correlations between clinical phenotype, genetics, and epigenetic mechanisms to investigate impact of disease in female carriers of IRD. As a postdoctoral research fellow, her work continues investigating disease mechanisms, novel biomarkers of retinal disease, and retinal gene therapy potential for female carriers.

Pioneering a groundbreaking 10-year longitudinal study in collaboration with The University of Oxford and Anglia Ruskin University (Cambridge), she investigated changes in retinal characteristics among female choroideremia carriers. Her research has earned her the University of Melbourne Dean’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Research, as well as the distinguished Ezell Fellowship Award presented by the American Academy of Optometry. Sena is also a strong advocate for female carriers of X-linked IRDs in research and practice, encouraging the inclusion of female carriers in upcoming gene therapies.