STROBE Awards

Jessica Ramella-Roman has been elected as a Fellow of Optica for her pioneering contributions to the study of polarized light transport in biological media through experimental and computational approaches.

The Board of Directors of  Optica (formerly OSA), Advancing Optics and Photonics Worldwide, recently elected 129 members from 26 countries to the Society’s 2024 Fellow Class. Optica Fellows are selected based on several factors, including outstanding contributions to research, business, education, engineering and service to Optica and our community.

Fellows are Optica members who have served with distinction in the advancement of optics and photonics. The Fellow Members Committee, led by Chair Ofer Levi, University of Toronto, Canada, reviewed 216 nominations submitted by current Fellows. The Committee extends its thanks to all of this year’s nominators and references. As Fellows can account for no more than 10 percent of the total membership, the election process is highly competitive. Candidates are recommended by the Fellow Members Committee and approved by the Awards Council and Board of Directors.

The new Fellows will be honored at Optica conferences and events throughout 2024.

Congratulations to Prof. Chris Regan and Dr. William Hubbard for receiving the 2023 Microscopy Today Innovation Award for Low Noise, Two Channel STEM EBIC System.

NEI’s STEM EBIC system enables straightforward imaging of electronic and thermal features that are otherwise difficult, if not impossible, to visualize in the TEM. Electron beam-induced current (EBIC) is a measure of the current generated in a sample as it is raster-­scanned by a focused electron beam. Associating the measured EBIC with the beam position produces an EBIC image. First implemented in the 1960s, EBIC imaging is usually performed in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to map electric fields in microelectronic devices. For instance, the built-in electric field of a p-n junction separates electron-hole pairs generated by the beam, producing a strong EBIC signal. Recently, thousand-fold improvements in current measurement sensitivity have led to practical EBIC imaging in scanning transmission electron microscopes (STEMs). This improved sensitivity reveals previously undetectable EBICs. In particular, the EBIC generated by secondary electron emission (SEEBIC) can now be routinely visualized.

Standard TEM-based techniques excel at determining the physical structure of a sample—the atomic locations and elemental identities—but they struggle to distinguish a metal from an insulator, or a warm interconnect from a cold one. In microelectronic devices, such electronic and thermal structure is generally of greater interest than the physical structure. STEM SEEBIC-based imaging of micro- and nano-electronic devices reveals these signals at high resolution. It can, for instance, quantitatively map conductivity, electric field, temperature, SE yield, active dopant concentration, and work function.

NEI’s STEM EBIC system is a turn-key solution for measuring extremely small EBICs. Low-noise STEM EBIC images of sub-pA signals, including SEEBIC, can be acquired in under two minutes. Extrinsic noise (for example, line noise) is nearly undetectable, so image filtering and post-processing are not necessary. The system—featuring a sample holder, custom substrates, and electronics optimized for EBIC in the TEM—is equipped with two independent EBIC amplifier channels for acquiring EBIC from different electrodes simultaneously. Two-channel EBIC can definitively separate SEEBIC from standard EBIC in situations where both are present, which greatly facilitates analysis and interpretation. NEI’s STEM EBIC system is designed to work with other in situ techniques, including heating and biasing on either custom-fabricated test devices or FIB-extracted cross-­sectional samples.

Ruiming Cao received the Best Student Paper Award for his paper titled, “Speckle Structured Illumination of Dynamic Samples with a Neural Space-time Model” at the Optica Imaging Congress this fall. Congratulations, Ruiming!

The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. GRFP seeks to broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans. The five-year fellowship provides three years of financial support inclusive of an annual stipend of $37,000.

The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. The purpose of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is to ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. GRFP seeks to broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans. The five-year fellowship provides three years of financial support inclusive of an annual stipend of $37,000.

Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology (BMSB) graduate students Andrew Goring (Clubb/Loo groups) and Alexander Stevens (Zhou group) have been awarded prestigious Whitcome Pre-doctoral Fellowships in Molecular Biology for 2023-24. The fellowship will provide them support in the form of tuition/fees, a monthly stipend and travel funds.

Alex Stevens received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Arizona State University, where he researched G protein-coupled receptor structures in the lab of Professor Wei Liu. In the fall of 2019, Alex joined the Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology (BMSB) graduate program under the tutelage of Professor Hong Zhou.

Alex’s graduate work leverages the recent advancements in cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) to resolve high-resolution structures of the proteins that drive assembly and replication in double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) viruses. Because dsRNA is alien to eukaryotes and thus a powerful inducer of the antiviral response, these viruses have evolved to transcribe nucleotides at transcriptional enzymatic complexes (TECs) within their proteinaceous capsids which simultaneously undergo large architectural changes. Alex investigates this dynamic within complex dsRNA viruses, like the economically important aquareovirus, to determine how their TECs and capsids change throughout their lifecycle. He has also characterized a minimally complex dsRNA virus which he plans to use as a model to probe the rules of intracellular replication amongst these ubiquitous pathogens.

Alex is passionate about deepening our understanding of disease and hopes to contribute to the discovery of therapies that improve people’s lives and wants to improve the manner in which we conduct science so it may realize all its promises to stakeholders. After receiving his PhD, Alex plans to pursue research roles uncovering the mechanisms underpinning pathogenesis of harmful microbes and hopes to one day branch into science policy. “UCLA gave me the perfect environment to collaborate with preeminent scholars, learn techniques from the leading edge of my field, and produce impactful work, and I look forward to applying what I’ve learned to my future work.”

About the Whitcome Fellowships

In 2005 UCLA received an $8,000,000 bequest from the estate of Philip Whitcome.  Dr Whitcome received his Ph.D. in 1974 from the Molecular Biology Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program and went on to a stellar career in the biotechnology industry. His gift allowed the establishment of the Whitcome Fellowship Program designed to attract highly talented students to a unique graduate training environment that emphasizes rapid progress toward groundbreaking scientific discoveries.