Liam Collins

Functional AFM Group Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN, USA

Dr. Liam Collins is a Senior R&D Staff Scientist at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), a U.S. Department of Energy Nanoscale Science Research Center (NSRC) located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his PhD in Physics from University College Dublin through the Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, an MSc in Applied Physics from the University of Limerick, and a BSc in Science Education from the University of Limerick; he also holds an MSc in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Carson–Newman University. He is a recipient of multiple honors, including a DOE R&D 100 Award, a Microscopy Today Innovation Award, the MRS Graduate Student Gold Award, and several ORNL Distinguished and Outstanding Staff Awards. He is a co-inventor on several patents related to AFM methodologies and has co-organized major international SPM conferences, including iSPM, SPMonSPM, and SPMconnect. His research focuses on advanced functional atomic force microscopy, including the development of liquid and time-resolved Kelvin probe force microscopy methods and quantitative piezoresponse force microscopy approaches for nanoscale characterization of materials and biological systems, with recent work directed toward semi-autonomous and data-driven AFM imaging workflows.