Dr Wing Chung Tsoi is a Senior Lecturer from Materials Research Centre at the College of Engineering, Swansea University. He obtained his Higher Diploma in Applied Physics and BSc in Physics from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and The University of Hull, respectively. He then obtained his PhD in Physics at The University of Hull in 2006. After that, he took a postdoctoral position at The University of Sheffield. From 2009, he obtained a EPSRC-NPL postdoctoral partnership with Imperial College and National Physical Laboratory. From 2014, he was awarded Knowledge Transfer Secondment with Imperial College and NPL. During 2014-2019, he was a senior research officer at Swansea University. In 2019, he was a lecturer there and he was subsequently promoted to his current position in 2020. His research interests are mainly focus on solution-process photovoltaic/solar cells, including organic solar cells, perovskite solar cells...He is particularly interested in understanding the structure-property-performance relationship of the photovoltaic/solar cells, in order to understand the fundamentals and to improve the performance, particularly the stability of the photovoltaic/solar cells. His expertise is on developing/applying advanced (nano-) characterization methods to probe the structures/morphology of the photovoltaic thin films, and correlate it to the properties and performances. His particularly expertise is on advanced Raman system-based spectroscopy/mapping and functional atomic force microscopy as well as photovoltaic cells for indoor, power generation window and aerospace applications. Dr Tsoi have published 69 papers and involved in 60 oral presentations in international/national conferences including a number of invited talks.

Dr Wing Chung Tsoi is the winner of the 2021 RMS Medal for Innovation in Applied Microscopy for Engineering and Physical Sciences, this will be presented at mmc2021.

Scanning tunneling microscopy at 100 mK. Determination of the superconducting gap and electronic density of states in more than twenty different compounds.  Development and construction of new experiments, such as microscopy in three-axis magnets. Development of the synthesis of new quantum materials at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. PhD (1997) on thermal conductivity measurements at very low temperatures (15 mK) in the heavy fermion superconductor UPt3, establishing the quasiparticle excitation spectrum of nodal superconductors. Marie Curie fellow (1998-2000), Ramón y Cajal fellow (2001-2006), Profesor Titular (2006-2019), having passed through the state habilitation contest and Full Prof since 2019. Teacher of advanced laboratory, solid state and statistical physics. Fellow APS 2017. Manager (president of the physics panel) of the Spanish Science State Agency (2015-2018). Director of the Nicolás Cabrera Institute (2011-2020, www.uam.es/inc), coordinator for materials sience at www.uam.es/ifimac, coordination work at segainvex (www.uam.es/segainvex) and member of panels and commissions such as C5 IUPAP. 110 articles, h-index of 26, more than 50 invited contributions to international meetings, including major keynote talks, 2 patents, 7 co-directed PhD thesis, participation in numerous PhD committees. Action Chair of COST project (nanocohybri.eu), PI of 12 projects and co-PI in 2 Marie Curie projects. Co-organizer of 7 international meetings.

Professor Frank Koppens obtained his PhD in experimental physics at Delft University, at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, The Netherlands.  After a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, Since August 2010, Koppens is group leader at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO).  The quantum nano-optoelectronics group of Professor Koppens focuses on both science and technology of novel two-dimensional materials and quantum materials.

Professor Koppens is vice-chairman of the executive board of the graphene flagship program, a 1000 MillionEuro project for 10 years. He is also the leader of the optoelectronics workpackage within the flagship.  Professor Koppens holds a GSMA Chair with activities related to the Mobile World Congress. 

Koppens has received five ERC awards: the ERC starting grant, the ERC consolidator grant, and three ERC proof-of-concept grants. Other awards include the Christiaan Hugyensprijs 2012, the national award for research in Spain, the IUPAP young scientist prize in optics, and the ACS photonics investigator award. In total, Koppens has published more than 80 refereed papers (H-index above 50), with more than 35 in Science and Nature family journals. Total number of citations exceeds 20.000 (google scholar).  Weblinks: Graphene.icfo.eu, Koppensgroup.icfo.eu

Markus Sauer studied Chemistry at the University of Heidelberg where he received his Diploma in 1991 and finished his PhD 1995 in Physical Chemistry. 1998 he has been awarded the BioFuture Prize for Detection, Analysis and Handling of Single Molecules, which allowed him to establish his own group for single-molecule fluorescence detection and single-molecule DNA sequencing. Since 2009 he is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biotechnology and Biophysics at the Julius Maximilian University Würzburg. His research interests are single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging with a particular focus on super-resolution fluorescence imaging by direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) and its applications in structural biology, immunology, host-pathogen interactions, and cancer immunotherapies. A couple of years ago he started to combine refined super-resolution and expansion microscopy methods to push the limits and pave the way for true molecular resolution. He has published more than 280 journal papers and coordinates several super-resolution microscopy based projects.

I studied physics at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany) with diploma at the institute of optics in 1994.  During my PhD in physics in Heidelberg I investigated different kinds of light scattering at the Kirchhoff-Institute for Physics, as well as evanescent wave microscopy at the Max-Planck-Institute for medical research in Heidelberg – both with applications in cell biology.  After my PhD in 1998, I continued my research as a Post-Doc at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. I intensified my studies on microscopy, light scattering and optical forces.  In 2001, I became project leader at EMBL, where I concentrated on the development of photonic force microscopy and on applications in biophysics and soft matter physics.  In 2005, I was awarded with the habilitation in physics at the university of Heidelberg.  Since January 2006 I am full professor for Bio- and Nano-Photonics at IMTEK, Faculty of engineering and since 2007 also a member of the physics faculty, University of Freiburg.  We want to understand the dynamics of living system on short timescales. Therefore, we develop novel techniques for laser optical microscopy and optical force based applications. We investigate the biophysics of living cells and of bio-mimetic systems based on their nano-mechanics and thermal fluctuations.  Since 1999 I have been fascinated by microscopy with more than one optical axis. Being in Freiburg, I introduced Bessel beams to the field of light-sheet microscopy in 2009 and 2010, the concept of line-confocal detection in 2012, and a powerful method to suppress scattered light image contributions in 2016.

Philipp Kukura is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, leading an interdisciplinary research group that focusses on the development and application of new optical methodologies to study biomolecular structure, dynamics and interactions. A particular focus has been mass photometry, the detection, characterisation and quantification of biomolecular structure and interactions by mass measurement at the single molecule level in solution. Recent awards include those by the RSC (Harrison-Meldola 2011 and Marlow 2015), the European Biophysical Society Association (Young Investigator Medal 2017), a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2018), the Klung-Wilhemy Award (2018) and a UK Blavatnik Award Laureate (2019).

Professor Philipp Kukura is the winner of the 2021 RMS Medal for Light Microscopy, this will be presented at mmc2021.

Yanlan Mao is a Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London. After receiving her BA in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, she completed her PhD with Matthew Freeman at the MRC LMB in Cambridge on Drosophila cell signaling and epithelial patterning. During her postdoc with Nic Tapon at the CRUK London Research Institute (now Francis Crick Institute), she became interested in tissue mechanics and computational modeling approaches, and studied the role of mechanical forces in orienting cell divisions and controlling tissue shape. In 2014, when Yanlan started her independent research group, she has continued to investigate the role of mechanical forces in tissue development, homeostasis and repair. 

She now holds a MRC Career Development Award Fellowship, a Lister Institute Prize and an L’Oreal UNESCO Women in Science Fellowship. She was selected to join the EMBO Young Investigator Programme in 2018, was recently awarded the Early Career Prize in Mechanobiology by the Biophysical Society, and the BSCB Women in Cell Biology Early Career Medal.

Dr Yanlan Mao is the winner of the 2021 RMS Medal for Life Sciences, this will be presented at mmc2021.

Colinda Scheele is a junior group leader at VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology as of June 2020. Colinda received a Master in Biomedical Sciences from Utrecht University. She performed her PhD research (cum laude) in the lab of Prof. Jacco van Rheenen (at the Hubrecht Institute (Utrecht) and the Netherlands Cancer Institute (Amsterdam)). During this time, she pioneered unbiased lineage tracing approaches, 3D whole organ imaging techniques and intravital microscopy strategies to study mammary stem cell dynamics. She identified the pubertal mammary stem cells and how they drive mammary gland branching morphogenesis (Scheele*, Hannezo* et al., 2017, Nature; Hannezo*, Scheele* et al., 2017, Cell; Corominas-Murtra*, Scheele* et al., 2020, PNAS). Moreover, she studied how these mammary stem cells contribute to tumor initiation and progression. For this research proposal, Colinda was awarded a prestigious Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds (BIF) PhD fellowship.
 
The Scheele laboratory focuses on morphogenesis, homeostasis, and tumorigenesis of epithelial organs ranging from a cellular level to the organ scale. More specifically, the Scheele lab studies how healthy tissue architecture and environment prevent or promote the different steps of tumorigenesis. To study these highly dynamic processes, the Scheele lab utilizes and develops state-of-the-art imaging approaches, including 3D whole organ imaging and 4D intravital microscopy using imaging windows. These imaging tools are complemented with (spatial) omics approaches, as well as quantitative modelling to further elucidate the mechanisms of tissue transformation.

Max is a cell biologist originally from Mendoza, Argentina. In 2005, he obtained a PhD in cell biology from the University of San Luis, Argentina. During his PhD work, he discovered a novel innate immune pathway, later named “Xenophagy”. In 2006, he moved to EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany as a postdoc in Gareth Griffiths Laboratory, first as a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and then as an EMBO fellow. His work in Heidelberg focused on the cell biology and imaging of macrophages; it was also in Heidelberg that he felt in love with Electron Microscopy.
In 2009, he started his independent research group at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany as head of the Junior Research Group 'Phagosome Biology'. In 2012, he was recruited as a Programme Leader Track at the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research, which became part of the Francis Crick Institute in 2015. Since 2018, he is a Senior Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute.
As a cell biologist trained in microbiology, how intracellular pathogens evolved strategies to survive within host cells has always fascinated me and clearly shaped my scientific career. My long-standing interest is the cellular mechanisms that regulate the interactions between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and host cells. I aim to better understand the host cell factors that contribute to M. tuberculosis control as well as the M. tuberculosis factors that this pathogen uses to highjack host cells. To this end, my lab is developing a variety of cutting-edge imaging technologies in high containment combined with various model systems and approaches at the single cell level.

Nidhi is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Kaye lab, Hull York Medical School, University of York. Trained in developmental genetics (PhD),  Nidhi completed her PhD (2017) from Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER), India looking for stem cells in Drosophila as a model for aorta-gonad-mesonephros–derived hematopoietic stem cells . Currently, Nidhi is investigating immunopathology of human CL with particular emphasis on host -immune interactions and looking for novel host directed therapies that might alleviate patient suffering.  

Philip Withers is the first Regius Professor of Materials and Chief Scientist of the Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials.  He was a lecturer in Cambridge from his PhD until 1998 before taking up a Chair in Manchester.  He employs advanced imaging and characterisation techniques to follow the behaviour of engineering and natural materials, often in 3D and in operando.  A fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. He pioneered the use of neutron and synchrotron X-rays for probing the behaviour and degradation of engineering materials. In 2008 he set up the Henry Moseley X-ray Imaging Facility, one of the most extensive suites of X-ray Imaging facilities in the world with a special focus on in situ time lapse 3D X-ray imaging. In 2014, the Facility was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize.  In 2020 these facilities became a founding part of the National Research Facility in Lab. CT opening up the capability to the wider academic and industrial community. He is also active in the area of 3D electron microscopy imaging and characterisation through dual beam (PFIB-SEM) and tribeam (laser-PFIB-SEM) serial sectioning.  Taken together the X-ray and electron microscopy techniques cover a very wide range of length scales and contrast mechanisms and these are being incorporated within a correlative framework to provide multifaceted, multiscale information.

Ben Giepmans is intrigued by how molecules act together to control cell fate in health and disease. He is a cell biologist and molecular biochemist/ microscopist and always have been triggered by using newly developed techniques to overcome current limitations in research, especially when these techniques allow to get unbiased, unexpected answers to research questions. His PhD research at The Netherlands Cancer Institute and related work in The Scripps Research Institute have led to a better molecular understanding of regulation of gap junctions. Similarly, during his post-doc at the National Center of Microscopy and Imaging Research (University of California, San Diego), we optimized and implemented several new advanced imaging techniques and probes to study protein dynamics in live cells and protein localization at high resolution. Giepmans was awarded the Robert Fuelgen prize by the Society for Histochemistry for this work. Currently, my team develops and/or implements new imaging techniques and probes for microscopy, including large-scale EM (‘nanotomy’) and ‘ColorEM’, where elemental analysis is implemented in EM for life sciences.  Next to his research, Giepmans took the challenge to build an advanced microscopy imaging infrastructure at the UMCG. The center is now equipped with state-of-the-art light microscopes and electron microscopes (www.umic.info). We continue to develop and/or implement multimodal microscopy in several research projects (www.nanotomy.org). In particular, we study the possible triggers that may interfere with normal function of Islets of Langerhans ultimately resulting in Type 1 diabetes.

Malgorzata Kujawinska PhD DSc., SPIE Fellow, Full Professor of applied optics at Warsaw University of Technology. Expert in full-field optical metrology,  development of novel photonics measurement systems, 3D label-free, quantitative imaging in biomedical engineering with special focus on digital holographic microscopy and optical diffraction tomography. Author of one monograph, several book chapters and more than 250 papers in international scientific journals. She had been the  SPIE President and vice-President of European Technology Platform Photonics21. The recipient of SPIE 2013 Chandra S. Vikram Award in Optical Metrology.

Daniel Baum is head of the research group »Visual Data Analysis« and deputy head of the department »Visual and Data-Centric Computing« at the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB), Germany. He studied computer science at the Humboldt-Universität and the University of Edinburgh. In 2007, he received his Dr. rer. nat. degree from the Freie Universität Berlin with a thesis on molecular shape analysis. His current research interests include visual data analysis, computer graphics, image analysis as well as shape modelling and analysis. Daniel has many years of experience in interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers from very different fields like biology, geoscience, material science and ancient studies. He therefore regularly works on data of different origin, size, and scale from a variety of image sources, including micro-computed tomography, electron tomography, but also histological data and 2-photon microscopy. As part of his research, for almost 20 years, Daniel has been an active developer of the Amira software, which was originally developed at ZIB and is now jointly developed with Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Irene Groot obtained her PhD degree at Leiden University investigating the dissociation of hydrogen on single crystals, both experimentally using supersonic molecular beams and theoretically performing density functional theory and quantum dynamics calculations. After a postdoc at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin, where she studied CO oxidation using sanning tunneling microscopy, she went to the Leiden Institute of Physics with a personal Veni fellowship from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. Here she investigated HCl oxidation using scanning tunneling microscopy under reaction conditions, and subsequently started her own group.

Currently, Irene Groot is associate professor (tenured) at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry where she is heading the operando catalysis research group. She investigates the structure-activity relationship of catalysts under industrial conditions using operando scanning probe microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray-based techniques. She focuses on industrial processes related to sustainable energy and materials production. Current topics in her group are hydrodesulfurization, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, methanol steam reforming, automotive catalysis, chlorine production, and graphene growth on liquid copper. Additionally, she is developing equipment for high-pressure surface science and operando catalysis research.

Thomas Hansen studied physics at the University of Copenhagen where he received his M.Sc. in 2001 finishing with a project on the use of electron energy-loss spectroscopy for the study of carbon-based materials. He then pursued his PhD in chemistry as a joint project between the University of New Mexico, the Technical University of Denmark and the catalyst company Haldor Topsøe. During his PhD studies, he used environmental transmission electron microcopy to study the sintering of nickel-based steam reforming catalysts under different environments. After receiving his degree in 2006, he continued his research in catalysis at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin where he studied complex mixed metal oxides for selective oxidation processes. In 2008, he returned to the Technical University of Denmark, first in a post-doctoral position, and was in 2010 promoted to senior researcher. Thomas now focuses on the study of the dynamics and growth of nanostructures (nanoparticles and 2D materials) by environmental transmission electron microscopy and the application of automated analysis techniques such as convolutional neural networks. His primary interests are the fundamental properties of nanostructures and the use and development of in situ techniques.

After a PhD in physics in Rouen (2006) where we developed a new generation of pulsed-laser atom probe microscopes, I worked as a scientist at the ACMM at the University of Sydney from 2007-2009 and 2010-2012 (jointly with ANSTO), and in-between, I was a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Materials, University of Oxford where I worked on thermoelectric materials. In 2012, I was appointed Assist. Prof. at McMaster University in Canada, but quitted after 6 months. From Dec. 2012 - Dec. 2015, I interrupted my research career, and took on a position of Senior Publisher in the Materials Science group at Elsevier Ltd. in Oxford, looking after the Materials Engineering portfolio. During that time, I became an academic visitor at the Department of Materials, University of Oxford. On 1st January 2016, I became the Group Leader for Atom Probe Tomography at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf. Since October 2018, I also hold a part-time appointment as Reader at the Department of Materials, Imperial College London. I received the Leibniz Prize 2020 for my work on the development of the pulsed-laser atom probe tomography and help enable the spread of the technique over the past 15 years.