Commander Tyson Brunstetter entered military service in 1996 while an optometry student at Ohio State. He has spent most of his U.S. Navy career working on Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) programs within the Department of Defense (DoD). Some of his favorite career highlights include earning his “wings of gold” as a Naval Aerospace Optometrist; providing quarterly Vision Science lectures at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School; conducting military-focused medical research, including three landmark “LASIK in Naval Aviation” studies and four FDA Investigational Device Exemption protocols; and deploying as the sole DoD eye care provider for allied service members in Kuwait and southern Iraq. His current duty is to ensure that deployed medical devices (e.g., vital signs monitors, portable ventilators, etc.) are effective, suitable, and survivable in the austere environments encountered by our military forces. Throughout his career, he has relied on his Ohio State training and experiences on a daily basis and is extremely proud to be a Buckeye.
Commander Brunstetter received his OD, MS, and PhD degrees from The Ohio State University College of Optometry and an Executive MBA from the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association and the American Academy of Optometry. He was named the 2004 Armed Forces Junior Optometrist of the Year and, in 2011, received the Aerospace Physiology Society Paul Bert Award for outstanding aerospace research contributions. In 2012, he was selected as a U.S. Navy candidate for the NASA Astronaut Corps. CDR Brunstetter’s favorite activity is spending time with family, especially his wife, Laura, and his two amazing children, Bayden and Elle.