On Thursday, October 17th, NESM held its annual Fall Meeting at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s new Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovations Center (ETIC). The evening meeting kicked off with tours of the ETIC’s state-of-the-art nanofabrication facilities. Next, attendees socialized over a buffet-style dinner before being officially welcomed by NESM’s interim president Dr. Fettah Kosar. After the welcome address, Dr. Carol Forance Berry delivered an intriguing lecture on characterizing molded parts using SEM and atomic force microscopy. She described the importance of being able to produce many molded parts with a near-perfect degree of replication, and she touched on the pros and cons of molding different kinds of thermoplastics in a fascinating and accessible way. The second speaker was Stephen Senft from the Marine Biological Laboratory who gave a visually stunning presentation on specialized reflective spheres inside certain cells in cephalopod skin. His magnificent 3D reconstructions of serial block-face SEM images thoroughly impressed attendees and demonstrated the kind of powerful tools which exist at the interface of traditional microscopy and computational analysis. As one attendee said at the end of the meeting, “[Stephen’s lecture] served to remind us all of why we do microscopy.”
Check out our Image Gallery to see some of the stunning images from these lectures.
Rylie Walsh
2014 Corresponding Secretary
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