Scientific Organising Committee

IMC21 Chair
Professor Nigel Browning is the Chair of Electron Microscopy and Director of the Albert Crewe Centre for Electron Microscopy at the University of Liverpool and Director of the proposed Relativistic Ultrafast Electron Diffraction and Imaging (RUEDI) National Facility. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Microscopy Society of America (MSA). He received the Burton Award from the MSA in 2002 and the Coble Award from the American Ceramic Society in 2003 for the development of atomic resolution methods in STEM and an Alexander von Humboldt research award in 2020. With his collaborators at LLNL he also received R&D 100 and Nano 50 Awards in 2008, and a Microscopy Today Innovation Award in 2010 for the development of the dynamic transmission electron microscope (DTEM).

He has over 400 refereed publications and 380 invited presentations on advanced STEM/TEM methods. Recently he is a co-founder of a start-up company, SenseAI, commercializing IP he co-developed on Inpainting (>15 patents on compressive sensing/machine learning for imaging).

IMC21 Co-Chair Early Scholars Program
Professor Mehdi is Scientific Theme Lead for the Energy Generation, Conversion and  Storage Theme for the proposed Relativistic Ultrafast Electron Diffraction and Imaging (RUEDI) Facility. With over ten years of experience in the development and application of  in-situ  methods in electron microscopy for which she has received numerous awards. These include 2022 ERC  Starting Grant Award, 2021 KIT International Excellence Grants and Fellowships Award,  the 2019 Albert Crewe Award from the Microscopy Society of  America  for  distinguished contributions to the field of Microscopy and Microanalysis in the physical sciences by an early career scientist, the 2015 MRS Postdoctoral  Award, the 2015 Microscopy Society of America Award, the 2014 Microscopy & Microanalysis Presidential Award. She has over 70 publications and has organized multiple international in-situ TEM workshops and symposia and has given over 50 invited  presentations  at  international meetings and institutions.

IMC21 Co-Chair Physical Sciences
Prof Haigh leads a research group focussed on advanced transmission electron microscope (TEM) imaging and analysis. She has a particular interest in functional 2D materials, nanoparticle catalysts and developing in situ TEM imaging methods for which she holds an ERC Starter grant and was recently awarded an ERC consolidator grant. She is an elected Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers and Director of the $100M bp International Centre for Advanced Materials. She has published over 200 journal papers, including 45 as corresponding author, and 5 book chapters (H-index =63, over 20000 citations).

IMC21 Co-Chair Life Sciences
Prof Bhella is Director of the Scottish Centre for Macromolecular Imaging, Scotland’s national facility for structural biology research by cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Research in his laboratory focusses on the structural biology of viruses and virus-host interactions. During  his career David has made key contributions to the understanding of influenza viruses, pneumoviruses, herpesviruses, adenoviruses, caliciviruses and coronaviruses. He has >60 peer reviewed articles and >7000 citations. David is an enthusiastic science communicator. In 2013 he was awarded the microbiology society Peter Wildy prize for  microbiology education in recognition of his schools’ engagement work.

IMC21 Co-Chair Analytical Sciences
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 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 228 articles and has an h index of 64.

IMC21 Co-Chair Early Scholars Progam
Prof Thompson is a Chan Zuckerberg  Initiative Imaging Scientist Fellow in the Anatomy Imaging and Microscopy Facility (AIM) and an Assistant Professor in Anatomy, School of Medicine in the University of Galway. In 2021 - awarded €3.6m from Science Foundation Ireland and the  University of Galway to develop a Centre of Excellence in Multimodal Microscopy. 2020 - awarded a Chan Zuckerberg  Initiative Imaging Scientist Fellowship  (~$750,000), one of twenty-two funded globally and the only successful Irish applicant.

Current work focuses on the establishment of doctoral training programmes in Microscopy and Imaging, technology development to assist multidisciplinary teams and career progression pathways for Imaging Scientists and Core Facility Staff.

IMC21 Co-Chair Analytical Sciences
Prof Yuan has expertise in Nanophysics and nanomaterials, Electron energy loss spectroscopy, Aberration-free electron microscopy, Dynamical scanning probe microscopy. His research interests include; Nanophsycis: understanding the atomic structure, physical properties of nanomaterials, nanosystems and develop the application of the related nanotechnology and their characterization techniques. Electron Microscopy: development of advanced electron microscopy and related electron energy loss spectroscopy; physics of novel electron vortex beams and their applications in nanoscience and materials science.

IMC21 Co-Chair Physical Science
Prof Nellist leads a research group that focuses on the applications and development of high-resolution electron microscope techniques, in particular scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Pete gained his PhD from the University of Cambridge. Since then he has worked in academia and in the commercial world in the UK, USA and Republic of Ireland. He has received awards from a number of different microscopy societies. He is a former President of the Royal Microscopical Society a former Board Member of the European Microscopy Society. He was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society and Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Microscopical Society in 2020.

IMC21 Co-Chair Life Sciences
Following a first degree in Laser Physics and Optoelectronics (1998) and PhD in Physics from the University of Strathclyde (2002), Prof McConnell obtained a Personal Research Fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2003) and a Research Councils UK Academic Fellowship (2005), securing a readership in 2008 and professorship in 2012. The work in Gail’s multidisciplinary research group involves the design, development and application of linear and nonlinear optical instrumentation and new methods for biomedical imaging, from the nanoscale to the whole organism. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, and a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, where she is the current Vice Chair of the Light Microscopy Committee.

Jan has held senior leadership and management positions, and now manages the day to day strategic, operational and financial functions for the proposed RUEDI National Facility. Experienced in establishing strong governance structures, coordinating well-functioning and cohesive teams who work with clear strategic direction, Jan uses an extensive network of internal/external partners, stakeholders, collaborators across multiple global organisations, higher education institutions, key research funders, charitable bodies, commercial and public sector, including government agencies.

Resilient and with a high level of integrity, all practices are transparent and demonstrate a commitment to fostering a culture of equitable and inclusive processes.