STROBE Awards

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Congrats to Chris Regan and William Hubbard for Receiving the 2023 Microscopy Today Innovation Award

September 13, 2023|Microscopy Today|

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.

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Congrats to Ruiming Cao for Receiving best Student Paper Award at the Optica Imaging Congress

September 1, 2023|Optica|

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!

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Congrats to Colum O’Leary for Receiving a Poster Award at the 2023 Molecular Foundry User Meeting

August 21, 2023|The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory|

Dr. Colum O’Leary received a poster award at the annual Molecular Foundry User Meeting at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Colum’s poster was titled, “Visualizing embedded interfaces on the nanoscale via multislice electron ptychography”.

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Congrats to Vivian Wall for Receiving an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

August 1, 2023|National Science Foundation|

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.

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Congrats to Livia Belman-Wells for Receiving an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

August 1, 2023|National Science Foundation|

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.

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Congrats to Alex Stevens for Being Awarded a 2023 Whitcome Pre-doctoral Fellowships in Molecular Biology

July 18, 2023|UCLA|

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.

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Congrats to Kwabena Bediako for Receiving a Heising-Simons Faculty Fellowship

July 1, 2023|University of California Berkeley|

The Heising-Simons Faculty Fellows Program catalyzes scientific discovery by investing in high-risk, high-reward research directions. The Program supports exceptional faculty working on topics in a diverse set of fields, including astronomy, physics, geology and geophysics, materials sciences (in both physics and engineering), and physical and materials chemistry. Program awards will focus on creative and novel approaches that promise to lead to important scientific breakthroughs contributing to a greater understanding of the universe and its components, from the molecular and atomic to the geological and planetary scales, among other areas. Awards also fund the development of new tools, techniques and measurements that help probe these physical phenomena in new ways.

The Heising-Simons Faculty Fellows awards will be made to two UC Berkeley faculty members each year. Each $1M faculty award will be distributed over a period of five years. All early- and mid-career UC Berkeley faculty regardless of their home department are eligible to apply.

Prof. Bediako’s project is “Manipulating Electron Transfer with Twisted Interfaces”.

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Margaret Murnane is Awarded a Honorary Doctorate from the University of Salamanca

June 20, 2023|University of Salamanca, JILA|

Renowned scientist, JILA Fellow, and University of Colorado Boulder professor Margaret Murnane has been granted an honorary doctorate from the prestigious University of Salamanca, recognizing her outstanding contributions to the field of ultrafast laser science. As a trailblazer in her field, Murnane’s groundbreaking research has revolutionized our understanding of light and opened up new avenues for scientific discovery and technological innovation. This esteemed recognition from one of the oldest universities in the world serves as a testament to Murnane’s remarkable achievements and lasting impact on the scientific community.

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Congrats to Dr. Rachael Merritt for Receiving an NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

June 1, 2023|National Science Foundation|

The NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (MPS-Ascend) supports postdoctoral fellows performing impactful research in MPS fields while broadening the participation of groups that are underrepresented in the mathematical and physical sciences.

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Congrats to Stephanie Hart for Receiving a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Sciences from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation

June 1, 2023|Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation|

Stephanie Hart has been awarded the Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship for her project titled, “Nanoscale imaging of ultrafast energy flow in photosynthetic architectures.” The Arnold O. Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemical Sciences or Chemical Instrumentation Award Program supports advanced research by postdoctoral scholars within the core areas of fundamental chemistry or the development and build of chemical instrumentation. Congratulations, Stephanie!

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