How a deeply personal experience inspired Sheyva to save others’ sight

PETALING JAYA: When she was 18, Sheyva Sigamoney watched her mother, Devi Govindasamy, lose her vision in one eye.

It was another blow for the youngest of five daughters: they had already lost their father to a heart attack many years ago, leaving Devi to raise her family on her own.

Speaking with FMT Lifestyle, Sheyva explained that her mother, who worked as a matron at a government health clinic, had developed central retinal vein occlusion, or eye stroke, along with other sight-threatening complications.

She eventually lost the sight in her left eye.

Forced to give up driving and retire early, Devi found herself dependent on others. And having just completed her SPM at the time, Sheyva spent the next two years caring for her mother, accompanying her to hospital appointments and learning about eye diseases.

“My mother raised all five of us on her own. It broke my heart when she lost her vision and had to retire early,” said Sheyva, 32, who hails from Teluk Kumbar in Penang.

“Seeing how vision loss affected her independence made me realise eyecare isn’t just about prescribing glasses – it’s about protecting a person’s confidence and quality of life.”

Those two years sparked a lifelong passion. While pursuing a foundation in science, Sheyva immersed herself in books about eye diseases and pursued optometry as a career.

She enrolled in a bachelor of optometry programme on a partial scholarship, while the remainder of her studies was financed through a National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) loan.

When she graduated, her cumulative grade point average was just 0.02 points short of first-class honours. “It was disappointing, but I decided to keep going,” she said.

After graduating, Sheyva worked at an eye specialist centre before joining Island Hospital in Penang as a clinical research optometrist.

There, she saw how a lack of awareness led many patients from across Southeast Asia to seek treatment only after their eye disease had become advanced.

“I thought, ‘What if we could detect these conditions early enough to save their vision?’ That is only possible through research.”

This strengthened her resolve to pursue a PhD in the United States. But her initial applications were unsuccessful, which she attributed to her limited research portfolio.

Sheyva continued building her research experience at Island Hospital before trying again. This time, she received fully funded offers from three US universities.

She eventually chose Indiana University for its renowned vision-science programme and the opportunity to conduct research under Stephen A Burns, a pioneer in adaptive optics retinal imaging.

Now in the third year, her research involves using advanced imaging to study tiny blood vessels in the retina, with the aim of identifying changes that could help detect a person’s risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease and dementia.

She hopes the work will enable doctors to identify disease earlier, monitor patients more effectively, and begin treatment before permanent damage occurs.

“What makes this research particularly exciting is that the retina is the only place in the body where blood vessels can be directly observed non-invasively. The eye truly serves as a window to overall health,” she noted.

To the best of her knowledge, Sheyva is the first Malaysian optometrist to pursue a fully funded PhD in vision science in the US.

One memory stands out from when she was preparing to leave Malaysia: her mother reminding her why she had embarked on the journey in the first place.

“‘Remember why you started – it was because of me, and one day, you could potentially save the eyesight of millions of people’,” Sheyva recalled her saying.

Today, those words continue to guide her as she works towards contributing to eye research in Malaysia and across Southeast Asia – indeed, across the globe.

From Teluk Kumbar to the US, Sheyva hopes her journey reminds young Malaysians that where they start from does not determine how far they can go.