Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 20: Prof. Chong Fang

Chong Fang is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Oregon State University. Prof. Fang grew up in Wuxi (a scenic town near Taihu Lake and Shanghai), China, and received his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. Prof. Fang works on uncovering how biomolecules (such as fluorescent proteins) operate on femtosecond timescales through microscopy, and also works on research using ultrafast spectroscopy.

Tune into this episode of Science Off Camera to hear about superfast biophysics, and how to get into research and make the most of life’s opportunities.

Research

Prof. Fang has a growing interest in tackling modern biophysical and biochemical problems using state-of-the-art vibrational spectroscopies in the femtosecond to picosecond domain, resolving their intrinsic motions that are functional, and facilitating future bioengineering and biomedical advances. In his mind, life is fulfilling while research is opportunistic and enjoyable with a vibrant group of young talents in this exciting field where chemistry, physics, optics meet biology.

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 19: Prof. Seetha Raghavan

Seetha Raghavan is a Professor of Aerospace Engineering with joint appointments in Material Science at the College of Optics and Lasers, at the University of Central Florida. Seetha can be found at @raghavan_seetha, and in this episode she talks to us about her fascination for aerospace engineering, researching new materials for aircrafts, and guiding students on their scientific path.

Tune into this episode of Science Off Camera to hear all about aerospace engineering, materials research and education!

Research

Prof. Raghavan has seven years of experience in the aerospace industry where she was a senior engineer involved in aircraft structural analysis, aircraft maintenance, repair, and modifications, as well as research and development in nondestructive structural testing.

As a UCF faculty member since 2008, Prof. Raghavan works with her students to engineer materials as sensors to monitor structural integrity and capture the mechanics of high-temperature materials for jet engine turbine blades, high speed, and re-entry vehicles. She develops innovative characterization techniques that lead to experimental discoveries — from the fundamentals of load transfer with nanoparticle reinforcements to “seeing” strains evolve in high temperature coatings and materials under extreme operating conditions — the outcomes will engineer materials and structures that lead to game-changing technology in aeronautics and space.

Links

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 18: Prof. Gail McConnell

Gail McConnell is a Professor of Physics and the Director of the Centre for Biophotonics at the University of Strathclyde. Tune in to hear about a transition from physics to biology and the incredible Mesolens.

Gail developed the world’s first white light supercontinuum laser for confocal microscopy, as well as laser scanning fluorescence microscopy. Gail directs the Centre for Biophotonics and Mesolens laboratory at the University of Strathclyde, working on nonlinear and linear optical instrumentation for biomedical imaging.

Research

Prof. McConnell’s research group works on the design, development and application of new optical imaging methods, including the Mesolens.

The Mesolens is a giant microscope objective designed for computer data acquisition rather than the human eye. It arose from a realization in the early days of confocal microscopy that confocal images could not be obtained of large specimens, because the available low magnification objectives had too poor a resolution in depth.

Prof McConnell and the team have created an unprecedented numerical aperture of nearly 0.5 at a magnification of 4x. This results in a field size of 6 mm, with a working distance of 3 mm, and the possibility to resolve sub-cellular detail throughout this large volume in x, y and z.

Links

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 17: Prof. Alexander Bataller

Alexander Bataller is an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at North Carolina State University, tune in to this episode to hear about his career, from being a bartender to becoming a nuclear physicist, and how he connects the nano-dimension with galactic objects using spectroscopy.

Tune into this episode of Science Off Camera to hear about ultrafast laser and emission spectroscopy, Alex’s career journey, and studying the galaxy!

Research

The Bataller Research Group is focused on investigating the fundamental properties of dense plasma and how materials evolve when exposed to the extreme environments found in current and next-generation nuclear reactors. Prof. Bataller specializes in ultrafast laser and emission spectroscopy and is currently developing the following laboratories:

Ultrafast Plasma Laboratory (UPL)
Molten-salt Ultrafast Spectroscopy Characterization Laboratory (MUSCL)
Nuclear Materials Ultrafast Spectroscopy Characterization Laboratory (NMUSCL)

Links

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 16: Dr. Philippe Laissue

Philippe Laissue is a Lecturer in Bioimaging at the University of Essex and can be found @LaissuePhilippe. This episode discusses Philippe’s history in imaging, building light sheet systems with OpenSPIM, and what the next big challenges are for gentle, live cell imaging.

Just how little light can perturb your microscopy samples? Tune in to this episode of Science Off Camera to find out!

Research

Imaging specialist with a focus on developing methods for quantitative microscopy: Main expertise is low-light, in vivo fluorescence microscopy and quantified image analysis, using different imaging modalities, multi-scale approaches, and fluorescent proteins.

Other works include: Live microscopy of marine organisms, reef-building corals, metabolic inhibitors of prostate cancer, and location/signaling of hydrogen peroxide in plants.

Links

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 15: Prof. Vinod Menon

Vinod Menon is a Professor of Physics and Chair of the Physics Department at the City College of New York, as well as a fellow of The Optical Society of America. At the Laboratory for Nano and Micro Photonics (LaNMP) Prof. Menon and team explore approaches to control light-matter interaction at the nanoscale.

Tune into this episode of Science Off Camera to hear about LaNMP, research into emergent material properties, and how to answer the fundamental questions using imaging and light-matter interactions.

Research

“Research in the Laboratory for Nano and Micro Photonics (LaNMP) can be best summarized as an exploration of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale. We are interested in exploring emergent material properties (classical and quantum) that arise when matter is subjected to artificially engineered electromagnetic environments. The goal is to develop a largely unexplored strategy for realizing programmable matter based on coherently combining material excitations with light – realizing half-light half-matter quasiparticles. We hope to answer fundamental questions related to ultimate limits of controlling light-matter interaction and apply these concepts in applications such as quantum simulators, energy harvesting, ultrafast light emitters, and catalysis.”

Links

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 14: Dr. Eli Rothenberg

Eli Rothenberg is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at New York University (NYU).

Tune in to this episode of Science Off Camera to hear how Eli started his academic journey and how this lead to tackling the challenges of live cell super resolution microscopy with innovative imaging approaches to answer fundamental questions.

Research

“The Single-Molecule Biophotonics research laboratory at New York University School of Medicine develops innovative experimental approaches for solving fundamental questions in biomedical research. Our lab specializes in the development of new cutting-edge single-molecule fluorescence imaging techniques, computational methods, and novel assays and their applications for studying molecular mechanisms relevant to diverse human diseases and syndromes, for biomarker discovery and therapeutic targets, and for pharmacological mechanisms-of-action.”

Links

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 13: Prof. Darby Dyar

Darby Dyar is a Kennedy-Schelkunoff Professor of Astronomy, has written more than 260 papers and has been awarded more than $10 million in diverse grants from NASA and NSF. She is the Chair of Astronomy at Mount Holyoke College and set up the mineral spectroscopy database for Mars and had a role in the ChemCam imaging equipment for the Mars Rovers.

Prof. Dyars work lies in the overlap between geology, chemistry, physics and astronomy. Tune into this episode of Science Off Camera to hear about Darby Dyar and her work!

Research

The primary goal of Prof. Dyar’s research is to understand how hydrogen and oxygen are distributed throughout our solar system, particularly in terrestrial bodies such as the Earth, the Moon, Mars, and the parent bodies of meteorites. Prof. Dyar uses Mössbauer, reflectance, Raman, synchrotron, and LIBS spectroscopies. She studies rocks from diverse localities on Earth from the deep oceans to Antarctica, as well as lunar rocks and meteorite samples.

Links

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 12: Dr. Siân Culley

Siân is a postdoctoral researcher at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology at University College London with the Henriques Lab.

Siân is active on twitter @SuperResoluSian and active in developing both super resolution microscopy techniques (such as super-resolution radial fluctuations, SRRF) as well as actual microscopes. Sian also develops increasingly longer acronyms, such as SQUIRREL (super-resolution quantitative image rating and reporting of error locations).

Research

“My research centres on developing novel approaches for live-cell super-resolution microscopy. The resolution of conventional fluorescence microscopy is limited to ~200-300nm by the diffraction of light, and as such processes and structures on smaller scales than this cannot be accurately resolved. Super-resolution microscopy techniques extend the resolving capabilities of fluorescence microscopy down to tens of nanometres; however the majority of these techniques use high intensity lasers and/or require lengthy imaging times. This severely limits their compatibility with live-cell imaging. We recently published Super-Resolution Radial Fluctuations (SRRF), which enables super-resolution imaging on any modern fluorescence microscope with conventional fluorophores such as GFP. Importantly, SRRF is capable of increasing resolution without the need for high laser intensities and so can be used for imaging living, dynamic systems. I am currently developing computational and optical approaches to further limit the light dose to samples for SRRF imaging. In collaboration with the Baum lab, I am currently building a super-resolution microscope for imaging the cytoskeleton of live Archaea. The system is designed such that imaging can be performed at 70-80ºC and at low pH, and will be capable of performing super-resolution imaging using SRRF, SIM and STORM modalities.”

Links

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Science Off CameraPodcast

Episode 11: Prof. Dave McCamant

Dave McCamant is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Rochester, and is interested in light-matter interactions and how those interactions allow us to understand how things at the molecular scale move around and exchange energy.

Tune into the episode of Science Off Camera to hear about ultra-fast photochemistry between molecules, developing solar fuels and coming back to the lab post-shutdown.

Research

Research in the McCamant lab focuses on ultrafast structural dynamics in photochemistry and photobiology and thereby illuminates how excited-state structure is related to photochemical function. The innovative approach of this work lies in the application of ultrafast transient absorption, ultrafast Raman spectroscopy, steady-state methods, and computational chemistry to these photochemical problems. By combining ultrafast electronic and vibrational spectroscopy, this research obtains a detailed picture of how molecular structure evolves during photochemical events and how energy flows between coupled molecular vibrations. Because vibrational spectra can be directly mapped to molecular structure, ultrafast time-resolved Raman can establish the excited-state structures that drive photochemistry and photobiology.

Links

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