Microscopist Profiles

I look after three electron microscopes and their users and samples. Day to day this means designing experiments, training users and giving advice on sample prep, as well as operating, maintaining and troubleshooting the microscopes and other equipment.

Route to current position, e.g Apprenticeship/GCSE/A Level/BA/Bcom/BSc/BEng or other: BSc in Pharmacy, MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences, then PhD in structural biology where I learnt to use electron microscopes, followed by a postdoc in virus structure before my current position

Motivation to get into STEM field: I liked biology and chemistry in school but had no role models in those subjects apart from teachers. Pharmacy felt like it had a "real job" to go with the degree. I wanted a PhD and after that found I really enjoy working with the high-tech equipment more than I enjoyed investigating a single topic.

Advice to someone considering this as a career: More and more science depends on the high-end technologies, so specialising in one that interests you is a good idea, whether this is through a degree/PhD or an apprenticeship. Appreciation and recognition of technical staff like myself has massively improved in the past five years and I am optimistic about the future.

One cool thing you love about microscopes that people may not be aware of: Biological samples often depend on water for their shape. We can use cryo-electron microscopy to freeze the water and study those shapes with the water included.

Skills used: Troubleshooting and problem solving, technical and scientific knowledge, writing skills, social skills

Website:

warwick.ac.uk/research/rtp/bioimaging/

I am part of the product management team with marketing and I manage several product managers in the electron microscopy field. I provide strategic direction to my team and facilitate business processes. We are responsible for managing the entire life-cycle of our products, from the initial concepts through development and launching them to the market, monitoring performance and releasing updates, through to their end of their life. Day to day, we communicate with customers and people in the company, generate research material alone or with customers, work on marketing material, report results within the business, and plan the next stages of product development. We also attend conferences and visit our global teams several times a year. No single day is the same.

Route to current position, e.g Apprenticeship/GCSE/A Level/BA/Bcom/BSc/BEng or other: I did an undergraduate degree in Biology followed by a masters degree in biological electron microscopy and a Ph.D. in the same field. I had several post-doctoral research positions before becoming a bioimaging facility manager for several years. I joined Oxford Instruments as a product manager for the life science market and after two and a half years was promoted to my current position.

Motivation to get into STEM field: I had some brilliant biology and physics teachers at my school, causing me to fall in love with science and biology in particular. I followed what I enjoyed doing.

Advice to someone considering this as a career: Be open to all possibilities that come your way and follow what you enjoy and are challenged by. I thought I would always be in academia but am very happy that I moved to industry and work in another side of science.

One cool thing you love about microscopes that people may not be aware of: Every time you put a new type of sample in the microscope you open up a new world of exploration. It is beautiful and fascinating.

Skills used: Technical skills. Analytical skills for data analysis (research and business related data). A high level of scientific understanding. Communication skills (written and oral) to communicate with people at different levels of scientific understanding. Business management skills, understanding business and sales processes.

Website:

www.oxinst.com/

Route to current position, e.g Apprenticeship/GCSE/A Level/BA/Bcom/BSc/BEng or other: My academic studies were in STEM subjects up to a PhD in Biological Chemistry from the University of Essex in 2001. After a brief period as a research fellow I made the switch to a commercial role as an Application Specialist in a well known German microscope company.

Motivation to get into STEM field: Since a young age I was always interested in how the world worked and was a naturally inquisitive student. STEM offered the right balance of creativity and theory to keep me interested in learning. I also had some amazing science teachers along the way!

Advice to someone considering this as a career: STEM is not just about doing research or wearing a lab coat. There are hundreds of amazing careers in all sorts of different organisations. Don't be afraid to try them out. If you find out that one of them is not your thing then don't worry - just change, the right career and the right employer is out there waiting for you!

One cool thing you love about microscopes that people may not be aware of: They are THE icons of science and everyone loves them. Instantly recognisable and on a basic level, unchanged for decades. If you love microscopes, then you have at your fingertips one of the most powerful STEM engagement tools around!

Skills used: Leadership, Business Development, STEM Education, Scientific Communication, Microscopy, International Culture

Website:

www.zeiss.com

Running the company but still visiting labs and hands-on with some systems.

Route to current position, e.g Apprenticeship/GCSE/A Level/BA/Bcom/BSc/BEng or other: 

• Undergrad in Science (Natural Sciences, Cambridge)
• PhD in Pharmacology (Dept. Pharmacology, Oxford)
• Post-doc in Pharmacology (Harvard Medical School, USA)
• Applications Scientist (Intelligent Imaging Innovations / 3i, UK) - Training a lot of labs in the technique developed during my post-doc and supporting sales.
• Managing Director (Intelligent Imaging Innovations / 3i, UK) -

Motivation to get into STEM field: I was always very interested in understanding how things worked so a career in science was the only choice for me. My progression from Physical sciences within Natural Sciences through Pharmacology and then to Microscopy was governed by a desire to research something more directly applicable to everyday life (i.e. new drugs) but finally realising I enjoyed the physics, building and making equipment work a little more than I enjoyed the biology. The job opportunity offered by 3i was great mix of staying linked to the pharmacology and broader biology community but also using my microscopy skills and building systems.

Advice to someone considering this as a career: Microscopy is a core skill in a very broad range of biological and material science research and will only continue to grow. Pick a field within microscopy that you find interesting and become an expert, make sure you learn sample preparation this is key to effective microscopy and make sure you know how to extract useful data from the images collected without that final step the images are merely aesthetic.

One cool thing you love about microscopes that people may not be aware of: Early spinning disk confocal microscopes had an eye piece and (although not very useful) could be used without a camera!

Skills used: A little bit of a lot of skills in: optical physics, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, anatomy, computers, programming

Website:

www.intelligent-imaging.com/

Selling our AFMs and Raman microscopes in the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia

Route to current position, e.g Apprenticeship/GCSE/A Level/BA/Bcom/BSc/BEng or other: Chemistry degree, Chemical Physics Ph.D. and postdoc, materials analysis at service laboratory, sales for that same service lab selling analytical services mainly to the semiconductor industry

Motivation to get into STEM field: I loved chemistry in school and was fascinated when I saw my first graphene atoms STM image in the early 90s.

Advice to someone considering this as a career: Sales can be a great way to keep one foot in the science arena, but also access the different world of business

One cool thing you love about microscopes that people may not be aware of: AFM technology is still only 38 years old so there’s still many more exciting things to come from this type of microscopy.

Skills used: I still regularly use all my materials analysis technique knowledge in a lot of my sales cases. It really helps having this background knowledge to understand what a customer wants to achieve with his applications.

Website:

www.oxinst.com/

I sell a wide range of analytical, imaging and sample preparation equipment related to electron microscopy. To do this, I spend a lot of time attending conferences.

Route to current position, e.g Apprenticeship/GCSE/A Level/BA/Bcom/BSc/BEng or other: Education - BEng Materials Engineering (Swansea University), MRes Materials for Power Generation (Swansea University), PhD Functional Nanomaterials (University of Bristol). I began my working career as a service engineer, installing Ultrahigh Vacuum Deposition systems, before migrating to technical sales.

Motivation to get into STEM field: Natural curiosity and enjoyment of understanding how and why things work. I saw progressing from Engineering to Microscopy as a chance to go further down the rabbit hole!

Advice to someone considering this as a career: Don’t plan too far ahead an be open to new possibilities. Always be willing to learn something new.

One cool thing you love about microscopes that people may not be aware of: Gatan developed the first commercially available “electron counting” detectors, able to count individual electrons hitting the sensor in a Transmission Electron Microscope.

Skills used: Social skills, presenting, time management and forward planning, lateral thinking. 

Website:

www.gatan.com/

I am responsible for microscope sales in Europe. I am involved in direct sales and leading a team of sales engineers located in countries across Europe

Route to current position, e.g Apprenticeship/GCSE/A Level/BA/Bcom/BSc/BEng or other:  

• 2008 - PhD with focus on Neurosciences (University of Karlsruhe/Heidelberg/KIT)
• 2008-2012 PostDoc at Uni Bonn, Neurosciences, focus on imaging
• 2012-2018 Sales Engineer for Hamamatsu UK with focus on camera technology and life sciences
• 2018-2023 Manager of Life Sciences Department of Photon Lines Ltd, distributor of photonic equipment (worked with PCO, Omicron, Prospective Instruments, Abberior, Tokai Hit, Aurox…)
• 2023-now Sales Team Leader- Confocal Microscopy EMEA for Andor Technology

Motivation to get into STEM field: I was interested in Biology and wanted to become a researcher when I was at a very young age already. My passion for microscopy developed during my Diploma when working on a project that focused on imaging Drosophila brains. This was strengthened during my post doc days in Bonn and since then microscopy has been part of my professional life.

Advice to someone considering this as a career: After doing your PhD, also do a post doc and don’t leave academia right away. During my post doc I could further develop my interests and work more independent doing experiments and answering questions I was really interested in. This period gave me the possibility and freedom to develop skills that are still the basis of my daily work.

One cool thing you love about microscopes that people may not be aware of: During Covid and lock-down I had a STED Super Resolution microscope set up at home on my kitchen island, which enabled me to still do remote demos and show the technology to researchers. I was very concerned about the power consumption, specifically when using the high-power STED laser but found out that my dish washer was actually consuming more power than the microscope. Also, my cats did not like the microscope due to the high-pitched sound of the galvos when scanning fast.

Skills used: sales, management

Website:

andor.oxinst.com/

Present product offerings to customers globally based on their application and troubleshoot any challenges. Train sales and distributors on why our product

Route to current position, e.g Apprenticeship/GCSE/A Level/BA/Bcom/BSc/BEng or other: B.S. in Biology, and Ph.D in Anatomy and Cell Biology

Motivation to get into STEM field: A STEM career provides exposure to cutting edge technology and innovation and working in a company one also gains business skills. There is always high demand for professionals in science and technology, and one is able to make a difference – for me its technology to help with scientific discovery and eventually healthcare.

Advice to someone considering this as a career: Get the basic education and a degree, but the key is to network, network, and network

One cool thing you love about microscopes that people may not be aware of: I had a very basic knowledge about how to use microscopes in Histology lab and a little during my PhD. I only learned more once I started working in the field. You don’t have to know it all, just be willing to learn and you will be successful

Skills used: Biological background, my skill in this industry is bringing together technology and its application in Biology

Website:

www.excelitas.com/