August 4, 2026
We are proud to share that Dr. Valerie Lam, OD, FAAO, FOVDR, Class of 2012, has been named a recipient of the 2026 Professional Achievement Alumni Award by Marshall B. Ketchum University.
She will be recognized alongside the rest of this year’s honorees at MBKU’s Alumni Homecoming Day in Fullerton on Saturday, September 19, 2026.
For those of us who work alongside her every day in Costa Mesa, this is not a surprise. It is a formal acknowledgment of something our patients have known for years.
In MBKU’s own words, the Distinguished Alumni awards program “honors and recognizes alumni whose achievements, service and professional contributions have made a difference in their community and beyond.”
The Professional Achievement Alumni Award specifically acknowledges graduates who have reached significant prominence in their field and made outstanding contributions to the profession. It is not an award for building a large practice. It is an award for what a graduate gives back after leaving campus: clinical leadership, teaching, research, and service.
Dr. Lam has spent her career doing exactly that, largely on behalf of patients who are easy for the healthcare system to overlook.
Dr. Lam earned her Doctorate of Optometry magna cum laude from the Southern California College of Optometry at Marshall B. Ketchum University, after completing her undergraduate studies at the University of California, San Diego. She then stayed on at MBKU to complete a residency in Pediatrics and Binocular Vision.
Her credentials since then have accumulated in a specific direction:
She holds memberships in the Optometric Vision Development and Rehabilitation Association, the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association, the American Academy of Optometry, the Pediatric Cortical Visual Impairment Society, the Orange County Optometric Society, and the California Optometric Association. Her professional background is also documented on her LinkedIn profile.
She has contributed to the clinical literature as well, co-authoring the poster “Optical Solutions for a Patient with Retinally Induced Aniseikonia” with Rebekah Louie, OD, and Ray Chu, OD, MS.
Credentials describe what a doctor has studied. They do not describe what happens in the room. Here is what Dr. Lam’s training actually makes possible at our Costa Mesa office.
Vision therapy. Dr. Lam leads The Eye Gym at Insight Vision Center Optometry, our Costa Mesa vision therapy program. She works with children and adults on convergence insufficiency, amblyopia, strabismus, eye tracking and focusing disorders, and binocular vision dysfunction, using one-on-one therapist-guided sessions and virtual reality enhanced therapy.
Children with special needs. Her colleagues call her the “autism whisperer,” and it is not a casual nickname. Board certification in Pediatric Developmental Vision Care plus a pediatrics residency is what allows her to run a sensory-friendly, accommodation-first exam for a child on the autism spectrum, a neurodivergent child, or a child with cortical visual impairment. These are children who are frequently told that an eye exam is not possible for them. It is.
Post-concussion and brain injury care. As organizer of the Orange County Concussion Consortium, Dr. Lam has helped build the local collaboration between optometry, neurology, and physical and occupational therapy that concussion patients depend on. In the office she handles post-concussion and TBI visual rehabilitation, stroke and MS related visual symptoms, therapeutic tinting for light sensitivity, and Neurolens prescribing.
Myopia management. Dr. Lam manages myopia in children who also carry binocular vision or accommodative demands, and in children with special needs, where matching the treatment to the child is more complicated than a chart alone suggests.
Pediatric eye care. Infant vision evaluation, school readiness assessment, amblyopia and strabismus management, and IEP and school-based vision support guidance for families navigating the school system.
Asked once why she practices developmental optometry, Dr. Lam gave an answer that has stayed with our team: “I want to show love to others through vision care.”
She has also described what draws her to vision therapy specifically. It “allows me to use my avenues of creativity.” If a patient needs to improve convergence and a standard Brock string is not holding their attention, she would rather invent something that does than repeat something that does not.
That flexibility is a clinical philosophy, not just a personality trait. In her words, in developmental optometry “there could be more than one right answer to a problem, and that multiple roads can lead to a successful outcome.”
And on what she wants families to feel: “I want my patients to be able to feel that this is an office that truly cares about them, from the moment they step through the front door.”
The service half of this award is substantial. Dr. Lam lectures annually on vision care and vision therapy, creates educational video content for families, volunteers through medical missions and the Special Olympics, and mentors optometry students coming up behind her.
Outside of work she is married to the childhood best friend she has known since she was two years old, is a mother of three, and spends her time cooking, traveling, biking, dancing, and making art. The creativity she brings to therapy activities does not appear to switch off at the end of the day.
Dr. Lam is not the only connection between our offices and Fullerton.
Dr. Thanh Mai, OD, FSLS, FIAOMC earned his Doctor of Optometry summa cum laude from the Southern California College of Optometry and now serves as a clinical instructor there. He also returns to campus to speak with students about building a career in private practice.
Dr. Nhi Nguyen, OD earned her Doctorate of Optometry magna cum laude from the Southern California College of Optometry at Marshall B. Ketchum University.
Dr. Jeffrey Kamo, OD, FAAO graduated from the Southern California College of Optometry in 2023 before completing a Cornea and Contact Lens Residency at UC Berkeley.
Four doctors, one school, one campus about twenty minutes up the 55 from our Costa Mesa office. The Southern California College of Optometry was founded in 1904 and is the founding college of Marshall B. Ketchum University, which also houses the School of Physician Assistant Studies, the College of Pharmacy, and a Doctor of Medical Science program.
Congratulations to every honoree recognized this year.
MBKU Distinguished Alumni Award
Professional Achievement Alumni Award
Recent Graduate Alumni Award
Dr. Lam sees patients at our Costa Mesa office, which is where our vision therapy, special needs, and neuro-optometric rehabilitation programs are based. The office has a dedicated children’s exam room, a full pediatric optical, and a prize desk that has convinced more than a few reluctant kids that the eye doctor is fine, actually.
If your child struggles with reading, loses their place on the page, avoids near work, has been diagnosed with a concussion, or has been told that a standard eye exam will not work for them, a comprehensive evaluation is a reasonable place to start.
Congratulations, Dr. Lam. Well deserved, and not the least bit surprising.
Insight Vision Optometry, Costa Mesa
3151 Airway Ave., Ste. M3, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 486-3315
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Insight Vision Optometry, Irvine
4940 Irvine Blvd., Suite 102, Irvine, CA 92620
(714) 730-9580
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Meet our full team of optometrists, or read more about the MBKU Distinguished Alumni Awards.
