A graduate student at The University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Optometry will be recognized at the 42nd annual UAB Honors Convocation.

Katie Bales, a doctoral student in the Vision Science Graduate Program in the School of Optometry’s Department of Optometry and Vision Science, will receive an Outstanding Student Award at the ceremony, which will be held March 30 at the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center.

Each year, UAB recognizes students for outstanding scholastic achievement, leadership and service to the school and community at the ceremony. Schools and divisions at UAB submit names of students to be honored.

Bales has worked in the lab of Dr. Alecia K. Gross, associate professor in the Department of Optometry and Vision Science, studying the protein mechanisms of retinal degeneration. Her work on aberrant protein trafficking in retinal degeneration was published in Experimental Eye Research, and she has also been published in J Neuroscience.

Bales received her bachelor’s degree in biology and psychology from the University of Georgia and conducted two years of postbaccalaureate research at Kennesaw State University before coming to the School to earn her doctorate.