Dr. Ashley Rasys is a veterinarian and clinical scientist who studies reptiles to learn about human eye diseases and help to advance vision research.  She graduated from the University of Georgia with her doctorate degree from College of Veterinary Medicine and received her PhD from the department of Cellular Biology in 2022. Her research focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the development of the fovea of the eye, which is a pit-like structure that is critical for vision in the retina of humans and some vertebrates. Ashley investigated fovea development in the Brown anole lizard and pioneered the development of gene-editing technology in this species. For her contributions, she received the International Society for Transgenic Technologies Young Investigator Award, the Boehringer Ingelheim Veterinary Research Award for Graduate Veterinarians, as well as the University of Georgia’s Excellence in Research Award. She is currently continuing her work investigating fovea development in lizards as a postdoctoral fellow with the Brooks lab at the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health.