mmc2025: Microscience Microscopy Congress 2025 incorporating EMAG 2025

Mary Scott

University of California, Berkeley, USA

Talk title: Multidimensional characterization of nanomaterials with electron microscopy

Mary Scott is the Ted van Duzer Associate Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering department at University of California, Berkeley. She is also a Faculty Staff Scientist at the National Center for Electron Microscopy, part of the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She received a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and a B.S. in Physics, followed by an M.S. in Physics, from North Carolina State University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prof. Scott’s research program seeks to combine advanced electron microscopy with modern mathematical approaches for data handling and interpretation. Examples of her work include atomic resolution electron tomography studies of nanomaterials, machine learning approaches to interpret imaging and diffraction electron microscopy data, scanning nanodiffraction studies of disordered materials, and multimodal studies of interfaces in battery materials.

Peter van Aken

Stuttgart Center for Electron Microscopy, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Germany

Talk title: Uncovering Novel Interfacial Phenomena In Functional Oxides: From Symmetry-Forbidden Interfaces To Tunable Magnetic Anisotropy

Prof. Dr. Peter A. van Aken is the Director of the Stuttgart Center for Electron Microscopy (StEM) at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, advancing high-resolution electron microscopy. Under his leadership, StEM excels in scanning and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), focused ion beam techniques, and method development. His research focuses on the atomic-scale characterization of material interfaces, complex oxide heterostructures, strained semiconductors, nanostructured thin films, plasmonic nanostructures, nanoparticles, and functional molecules on 2D materials, enhancing the understanding of structure-property relationships.

Prof. van Aken served as Vice President (2020–2021) and President (2022–2023) of the German Society for Electron Microscopy (DGE). Recognized worldwide, he was listed among the "Highly Cited Researchers" (2018–2020) by Clarivate Analytics.

As coordinator and principal investigator of the European ESTEEM3 project (2019–2023), he strengthened Europe’s electron microscopy infrastructure, integrating state-of-the-art facilities and providing transnational access to advanced atomic-scale characterization techniques. ESTEEM3 fostered interdisciplinary collaborations between academia and industry, driving innovation in materials analysis across the physical, chemical, and biological sciences.

Prof. van Aken continues to push the frontiers of electron microscopy, delivering transformative insights into functional materials and advancing nanoscience and materials engineering.

Luiz Tizei

CNRS, France

Talk title: EELS and cathodoluminescence in STEM: from comparative to temporal coincidence experiments

Luiz Tizei is a research director at the CNRS in France, exploring nanoscale materials.  His passion for understanding how materials behave at the atomic level led him to pursue a PhD from the University of Campinas in Brazil (2011), followed by post-doctoral research at the LPS-Orsay in France (2011-2013) and the AIST-Tsukuba in Japan (2013-2014).
Luiz's research combines expertise in solid-state physics, materials science, and advanced electron spectroscopy techniques. He develops innovative instruments and methods to probe the properties of materials at high spatial and temporal resolutions.

Martha Ilett

School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, UK

Talk title: Using liquid phase TEM to understand and characterise complex hydrated systems

Dr Martha Ilett is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Leeds. She completed her BSc in Chemistry at The University of Bristol before completing her MSc in Forensic Toxicology at The University of Glasgow. Martha then began her PhD in 2016 at The University of Leeds looking at using cryo-TEM to characterise nanoparticles in complex biological media.

Martha’s research focuses on using cryo-TEM and liquid phase TEM techniques within materials research to analyse soft matter and/or hydrated samples. In particular she is interested in the bio-nano interface and how we can use and develop in situ TEM techniques to better understand this.

Ton van Helvoort

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway

Talk title: Find your way with 4D-STEM

Prof. Dr. Ir. A. (Ton) van Helvoort is part of the TEM Gemini Centre and the Norwegian Centre for Transmission Electron Microscopy (NORTEM) since they were initiated. Based in the Department of Physics at NTNU (Trondheim, Norway), Ton focuses on advancing and disseminating expertise in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. His current interest is on electron diffraction techniques, 4D-STEM, and data handling. Collaboratively, he applies these methodologies to various material systems and applications such as metals, minerals, semiconducting nanowires and for the investigation of oxide ferroelectric domain structures.

Lewys Jones

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Talk title: Extreme objective lenses for outlandish imaging

Dr Lewys Jones is the Ussher Associate Professor of Ultramicroscopy and an SFI / Royal Society University Research Fellow in the School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin. He leads the Ultramicroscopy research group at the Advanced Microscopy Laboratory, focusing on instrumentation and technique development for transmission electron microscopy.

He received his PhD from the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford in 2013, which focused on scanning stability in the aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope (AC-STEM) and on applications of focal-series annular dark-field data.

He has over 3500 citations across his publications and been awarded two patents. He has developed two commercial software plug-ins for Digital Micrograph in collaboration with HREM Research and is now the co-founder and CEO of turboTEM Limited; a Trinity spin-out company commercialising innovative, modular, and retrofittable TEM hardware upgrades.

He is currently a Board Member at the European Microscopy Society and Director of the SFI-EPSRC CDT in the Advanced Characterization of Materials. Dr. Jones is a Member of the Institute of Physics and has been a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society since 2015; he was the President of the Microscopy Society of Ireland from 2021-2025

Patricia Abellan

CNRS, France

Talk title: The radiolysis of water ice interfaces and of aromatic compounds studied by EELS

Patricia Abellan is a CNRS researcher at the Institute of Materials of Nantes (IMN) Jean Rouxel, Nantes University, since 2019. She received her BSc in Physics from the Aalborg University (Denmark) and her Ph.D. in Materials Sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Institute of Materials Science of Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Spain, in 2011. She has held postdoctoral positions at the University of California – Davis and at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA, before taking a staff research scientist position at the SuperSTEM Laboratory (Daresbury, UK) in 2015. Her research focuses on the study of solid-liquid interfaces on hybrid and biomaterials using electron microscopy as well as on the elucidation of the radiation chemistry and radiation physics driving the processes at liquid-solid interfaces induced by the electron beam in an electron microscope. In 2013 she received the Best Ph.D. Thesis Award from the SME, in 2019 she was the laureate of the NExT Junior Talent program and in 2023 she won an European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant.

Ana Sanchez

University of Warwick, UK

Talk title: Electron Microscopy to solve structural puzzles in oxide ferroelectrics

Ana M. Sanchez is a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick (UK), specializing in state-of-the-art electron microscopy and advanced techniques applied to a diverse range of materials.  Her research spans semiconductors, oxides, 2D materials, and polymers, with applications that all rely at a fundamental level on the ability to determine the precise location and type of atoms in structures just a few nanometres in size.  The challenges in characterisation of these materials provide opportunities to develop new methods, allowing her to refine electron microscopy techniques that drive collaborations across multiple disciplines.  She is always seeking to build existing collaborations, make new ones and to find new fields in which to apply her expertise.

Oriol Gavalda-Diaz

Imperial College London, UK

Talk title: Observing the crack tip behavior at the nanoscale during fracture of ceramics

I joined the Department of Materials and the Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics as lecturer in January 2024. Before that, I obtained my BEng from the Univeristat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) and my MEng from the University of Bordeaux. Then, I moved to the UK for a PhD at the University of Nottingham within the Rolls Royce UTC. In 2018, I started a postdoctoral researcher position at Department of Materials of Imperial College London. In 2021, I worked as a transitional assistant professor within the Composites Research Group at the University of Nottingham.

I am interested in understanding how ceramics and composites used in demanding applications fail. I focus on using a range of micro- and nanoscale characterisation and testing techniques that help us explain how the microstructure and chemistry is linked to the failure process. My philosophy is that by understanding the local properties and chemistry of a microstructure we can efficiently support the development of new materials via microstructural design and predict the lifetime via multiscale models.

Big part of my work has been focused on studying materials used in the transport and energy generation sectors. This includes materials such as ceramic matrix composites (CMCs), layered materials and zirconia. The main techniques we use include scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM), atom probe tomography (APT) and a range of in-situ testing and monitoring techniques.

Caterina Ducati

University of Cambridge, UK

Prof Ducati is a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) and a member of the Electron Microscopy and Analysis (EMAG) group of the Institute of Physics.  In 2019 she was awarded the Medal for Innovation in Applied Microscopy for Materials Science by the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS, UK). She is the Director of the Wolfson Electron Microscopy Suite at the University of Cambridge, and works on the characterization of nanostructured materials and devices using advanced analytical electron microscopy techniques, in particular focusing on materials for energy applications. She has published over 260 articles and has an h index of 69.