Birmingham Rotaract

Please join us for our luncheon on April 7 with Mary Jean Sanspree.

The luncheon will begin promptly at noon at The Harbert Center.

Dr. Sanspree is the Rotary District Governor.

Mary Jean Sanspree Biography

Mary Jean Sanspree, Ph.D. is the Rotary District Governor and a Research Professor of Optometry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has worked at UAB since 1984. Dr. Sanspree attended Auburn University, where she received her Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education, Speech Pathology and Special Education. She later graduated with a Masters of Arts in Education in Visual Impairments from the UAB and a Masters Certificate in Administration and Leadership. She completed the University of Alabama/UAB Collaborative Program and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Administration and Leadership with a concentration in Superintendence and Law. She is widely published in the field of visual impairments.
She is also UAB’s Vision Science Research Center Education Module Director.

Dr. Sanspree administers grants for the Alabama Deaf-blind Project, the Alabama State Department of Education/Lamar County contract for teacher’s training, and the Iowa Board of Regents teacher training contract. She has worked in the public schools, in parent infant home programs, in Ophthalmology Hospital Administration, and in rehabilitation low vision.

Dr. Sanspree’s role as Education Module Director in the Vision Science Research Center is to provide Outreach Education to the community for public awareness seminars, vision screening, and information and referrals to research, treatment, and rehabilitation facilities. The Education Module serves to coordinate the activities of statewide vision agencies for activities that affect public awareness concerning research and education.

As a faculty member at UAB, Dr. Sanspree has taught graduate courses in math, science and low vision in the Republic of Guyana for the Caribbean Council for the Blind. She acts as a consultant in the areas of low vision aquatics, creative dance and movement for the blind, low vision assessment, and Braille at various universities and agencies in the United States. She serves on national accreditation teams for college teacher training programs and residential school academic programs, directs the National Helen Keller Art Show for sensory impaired students, and supervises low vision, quality-of-life activities such as support groups, summer camps and golf schools.

Dr. Sanspree’s other interests include: swimming, white water rafting, and traveling to third world countries.