Prof. Peter Hendicott, WCO Immediate Past President

Upon graduating from the optometry program at the (then) Queensland Institute of Technology in 1974, Prof. Hendicott practiced optometry in Brisbane until early 1986, when he took up an academic position in the developing optometry program at the Hong Kong Polytechnic where he took on the role of Senior Lecturer and Clinic Director.

Prof. Hendicott left Hong Kong in 1993 and after a short period in private practice in Brisbane, he joined the University of Auckland as Clinic Director in the Department of Optometry and Vision Science. He later became the inaugural Head of Department in the Department of Optometry at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Ireland, returning to Brisbane in 2004. Prof. Hendicott subsequently joined the School of Optometry at the Queensland University of Technology in 2007, and took on the role of Head of School in 2008, until he retired in February 2018.

He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Optometry Council of Australia and New Zealand, the optometry accreditation authority for courses in both countries, from 2008, and served as the Chair from 2015-2019. He is a Past President of the Asia Pacific Council of Optometry. He has also served as a council member and President of the Optometrists Association of Australia (Queensland Division), and as a member of the Optometrists Registration Board in Queensland. Prof. Hendicott is the current WCO Immediate Past President (2023-2025) and was WCO President from 2021-2023 and Chair of the WCO Education Committee from 2017-2019. He was recognized for his contributions to the development of optometry in the Asia Pacific by being named the KB Woo memorial lecturer at the 2001 APCO conference, and to the profession in Queensland as Queensland Optometrist of the Year, also in 2001.