After graduating from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Dr. Alex D. Hwang joined Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass. Eye and Ear as a postdoctoral fellow. He became an Investigator and was appointed to Instructor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School in 2015. Today, at Schepens Eye Research Institute of Mass. Eye and Ear, his work focuses on bioengineering and low-vision rehabilitation.

Dr. Hwang's engineering background and cognitive research experience in eye movements and human visual system have provided the foundation for him to develop a realistic headlight glare simulator. This work led him to a study the functional impact and the behavioral response to oncoming headlight glare during nighttime driving for people with cataracts.

He has also been developing head-mounted display (HMD) software for patients with low vision. He implemented and demonstrated the possibility of using a lightweight, see-through head mount display (Google Glass) as a vision-enhancement device. A unique, augmented edge enhancement technique was fully implemented and runs as standalone application on the Glass. These apps are easily transferable to other HMDs.

Dr. Hwang's interest in HMDs led to full stereoscopic 3D (S3D) imagery. He is now focused on one of the biggest hurdles of HMD technology: motion sickness while watching S3D contents. While most other studies have primarily focused on hardware latency issues or accommodation-vergence conflict, Dr. Hwan'gs S3D motion sickness model focused on viewer’s perceptual depth distortion regarding the scene/viewer motion. It is the first model that illustrates the detailed process of visual perception that may cause motion sickness in S3D.