Dr Ayton is a clinician-scientist with a strong research interest in vision restoration, retinal eye disease and clinical assessment of visual performance. Dr Ayton completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne in paediatric optometry, and then completed a postdoctoral position in the area of traumatic brain injury and ocular motor function.

For the past six years she has led the clinical team of the Bionic Vision Australia project, and was a pivotal player in their successful bionic eye prototype clinical trial (2012 – 2014). Dr Ayton also consults for the Monash Vision Group cortical implant group and the UNSW Phoenix 99 bionic eye program, and heads an international consensus group (the HOVER Taskforce) who are developing gold standards for the measurement and reporting of patient outcomes in vision restoration trials.

Dr Ayton’s expertise has been recognised with the award of the 2015 veski Victoria Fellowship, the 2013 Hugh Roger Fellowship for medical research, Fellowship of the Australian College of Optometry and the American Academy of Optometry, and a number of other awards and accolades.

Dr Ayton is also a passionate science communicator, and is also a regular co-host on the Melbourne radio station 3RRR’s science communication show Einstein-A-Go-Go.