Candice Turner, OD, associate professor, has been named the Alabama Optometric Association Educator of the Year. 

A 2003 graduate of UAB Optometry, Turner joined the faculty full-time in 2015. She is the school’s director of externships, course director of Ocular Pharmacology, a CEVS lab instructor, chair of the Awards and Scholarship Committee, and a member of the Curriculum and Admission committees.

Her involvement in various aspects of the school allows her to interact with students at every stage of their optometric education, an experience she finds immensely rewarding.

“I start teaching the students during the Spring of their first year through CL clinic in their 4th year. I am involved in their education in some capacity every semester after their first year,” she said. “I love seeing the growth in knowledge and skills during that time, from starting out not knowing how to check vision to being able to independently make decisions right before graduation in their fourth year.” 

Being a teaching assistant for CEVS as an optometry student and serving as an externship preceptor for fourth-year students while working in private practice solidified her decision to become a teacher. Remarkably, her passion for teaching began growing even before these opportunities arose.

“I've always thought about becoming an educator,” Turner said. “I would pretend to teach when I was a kid by writing on my windows with a marker pretending it was a whiteboard and my closet door with chalk.”

This award recognizes your steadfast dedication to the optometric profession well before she became an optometric educator.