Dr Lucy Collinson

EM Section Chair

The Francis Crick Institute
Lucy is Head of Electron Microscopy at The Francis Crick Institute in London. Her degree and PhD were in Microbiology, followed by a post-doctoral position in Cell Biology using light and electron microscopy to investigate membrane trafficking pathways at University College London. Following that she ran biological EM facilities, first at UCL and then at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute, which became part of the new Francis Crick Institute in 2015. Her microscopy interests cover 3D EM, Correlative Light and EM, X-ray microscopy, image analysis, and microscope design and prototyping.

Prof Paul Verkade

EM Section Vice-Chair

University of Bristol
Paul Verkade has been involved in electron microscopy for over 20 years now and during that time has developed a particular interest in technology development, mainly in the field of Correlative Light Electron Microscopy. He loves organising training events and as such has been involved in many courses. For the RMS he is involved in the Rothamsted Research Cryo Course and was a member of the organising committee for emc2012.

Dr Thomas Walther

EM Section Deputy Chair

University of Sheffield
Thomas is Reader in Advanced Electron Microscopy at the University of Sheffield and Director of the Kroto Centre for High Resolution Imaging and Analysis. 
His research areas include electron microscopy method development and instrumentation, in particular HREM, EFTEM, ADF-STEM, EELS, ELNES, EDX. 
A focus is on quantitative analysis of semiconductor quantum wells and quantum dots, but also the study of interdiffusion and segregation at grain boundaries and within metal nano-particles.  
He runs the Microscopy of Semiconducting Materials conference series which is alternatingly held in Oxford and Cambridge, always in odd years.

Mr Mike Ashton

Intertek

Mike has over 42 years’ experience in all aspects of Home and Personal Care (Unilever) and Pharmaceutical (Intertek) microscopy, including LM; CLSM; SEM; TEM and associated preparation techniques, comprising of both manufacturing and troubleshooting applications.

Dr Alex Ball

Natural History Museum

Alex is the Head of Imaging and Analysis in the Core Research Laboratories at the Natural History Museum. He has over 25 years' experience in light and electron microscopy and has published research involving transmission and scanning electron microscopy, confocal microscopy and micro-CT. His PhD research involved the use of LM, SEM and SEM combined with computer-aided 3D reconstruction. Now his interests focus on non-destructive imaging and analysis of natural and cultural heritage samples.  Over the course of his career Alex has had the good fortune to be tasked with setting up the NHM's micro-CT laboratory and more recently the 3D surface scanning facilities where our first job was to 3D scan an entire blue whale skeleton! He has a keen interest in outreach and education and has led the NHM's imaging activities at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival for over ten years and routinely participates in the NHM's public outreach events.

Prof Asa Barber

University of Portsmouth
Asa is Professor of Advanced Materials Engineering at the University of Portsmouth. His interests are in using microscopy to understand the relationship between microstructure and mechanical properties of complex systems, particularly hierarchical structures produced by biology. Asa is leading a major initiative in 3D imaging within a broader 3D engineering activity at the University of Portsmouth.

Dr Roland Fleck

King's College London
Roland is Reader and Director of the King's Centre for Ultra Structural Imaging

Prof Pippa Hawes

The Pirbright Institute
Pippa is the Head of Bioimaging at The Pirbright Institute based in Surrey. Projects centre around investigating the interactions between animal pathogens and host cells. Bioimaging is dedicated to using and developing confocal and electron microscopy techniques to study viruses exotic to the UK that infect farm animals. Pippa has extensive experience in the field of electron microscopy and is an active member of the RMS EM section committee. She believes the RMS has an important role to play in the promotion and teaching of microscopy and is consequently a member of the Outreach and Education committee and lecturer at the RMS EM School.

Mr Gareth Jackson

Gatan
Gareth started his career in a clinical EM department in the early nineties. Since then he has worked for Olympus Microscopes and Leica Microsystems. Gareth is an active member of the committee and has been involved in many RMS courses over the years including the EM Summer School, Rothamsted Research Cryo Course and the Cell Imaging Techniques course at Oxford Brookes University.

Mr David McCarthy

DM Microscopy Services
David has over 40 years experience in electron microscopy, he retired from UCL School of Pharmacy in December 2014 to start up his own company, DM Microscopy Services. This Suffolk based company offers a variety of imaging techniques from optical to scanning electron microscopy, specialising in pharmaceuticals. David has served on the RMS EM section committee since 2005 and was Honorary Secretary of the Society of Electron Microscope Technology (SEMT)  from 1999 to 2014.

Dr Chris Parmenter

University of Nottingham
Christopher is a Research Officer in Cryogenic Electron Microscopy. His PhD is in polymer chemistry through which he developed skills in Cryo-TEM whilst investigating soft and biological systems. He recently moved into SEM, specifically Cryo-SEM and FIB-SEM of any samples where there is a nano-scale problem to solve or understand. He is keen to meet with other microscopists to further his knowledge of EM & other techniques.
Chris is currently the Editor of Microscopy & Analysis.

Dr Jeremy Rees

ThermoFisher
Jeremy has been using Electron Microscopy since 1982; initially for zoology research and then in biomedical research at a London hospital. He joined a large Pharmaceutical company and set up their imaging facilities in the late 80’s. Jeremy worked for FEI from 1994 as an applications specialist, area manager and as an account manager. In 2012 Jeremy set up a company promoting sample preparation solutions for electron microscopy and is also working on a Setting up an EM Laboratory book.

Dr Natasha Stephen

Plymouth University
Natasha is a Lecturer in Advanced Analysis (Earth & Planetary Sciences) within the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences at Plymouth University, and assists with the management & development of Plymouth Electron Microscopy Centre; the university’s flagship, multidisciplinary analytical suite. She completed her PhD at Imperial College London & the Natural History Museum London in 2014, focusing on the geology & surface mineralogy of Mars, and moved to Plymouth University straight afterwards. Natasha’s research focuses primarily on the use of meteorites to ground-truth spacecraft data at Mars (including Mars rovers and orbiters) as well as asteroids (Vesta, Itokawa etc.), by using various non-destructive analytical techniques. Natasha manages the Plymouth Planets research group, is an avid public speaker, heavily engaged in outreach activities, and an active member of the Meteoritical Society & Royal Astronomical Society. 

Dr Lore Troalen

National Museums Scotland

Lore Troalen is an Analytical Scientist at National Museums Scotland. She holds a PhD in analytical chemistry from the University of Edinburgh and previously studied chemistry and archaeological science in France where she gained MSc qualifications from the Universities of Paris XI and Bordeaux III. She joined National Museums Scotland in 2005, where her research interests include the use of X-ray based and microscopic techniques for the study of ancient gold jewellery. 

Dr Rebecca Thompson

University of Leeds
Rebecca Thompson is cryo-electron microscopy (EM) support scientist at the Astbury BioStructure Laboratory, University of Leeds. Her PhD work involved using cryo-electron tomography to investigate amyloid fibril-membrane interactions, and use of single particle cryo-EM to generate high-resolution structures of viruses. Her research interests include imaging a broad range of biological specimens, from whole cells to macromolecular complexes, and integrating data from EM with other microscopy techniques.

Prof Ursel Bangert

University of Limerick
Ursel obtained her degree and PhD in Physics from the Universitaet Köln (Germany), and is now Reader in the Limerick School of Materials. She oversees the running of the School’s electron optical facilities and has worked in the area of analytical transmission electron microscopy on a wide range of materials. She has been particularly concerned with the development of valence band and plasmon spectroscopy for highly spatially resolved electronic bandstructure assessment in wide bandgap semiconductors, diamond and nano-carbons, especially graphene.