Keynote Speakers
Opening Plenary Session
The M&M 2010 Program committee is pleased to present the Opening Plenary Session. Two exciting talks are planned by internationally known scientists whose research is dominated by microscopy and microanalysis. The time and location of the he Opening Plenary Session are as follows:Monday, August 2, 2010, 8:30 am
Oregon Convention Center - Oregon Ballroom
Keynote Speaker #1:
Professor Mark Welland
The Nanoscience Centre
University of Cambridge, UK
Professor Mark Welland, FRS, FREng will present an intriguing talk on his research entitled: "What Microscopy Can Tell Us about Alzheimer's and Related Diseases." Prof. Welland's talk will focus on the ability of scanned probe techniques to quantify the properties of materials at the the nanoscale. In particular, it will demonstrate how structural properties of protein aggregates, such as those deposited during diseases such as Alzheimer's, provide a basis for the elucidation of the underlying physical principles that characterize the progression of and challenges in treatment of Alzheimer's and related diseases.Mark Welland is currently on secondment to the Ministry of Defence as Chief Scientific Adviser, where he directs the science and technology programme, chairs the Investment Approvals Board that authorises all major capital procurement projects and acts as the Principal of the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement between the US and the UK on nuclear matters. During his secondment he remains Professor of Nanotechnology at the University of Cambridge.
Mark started his career in nanoscience and nanotechnology at IBM Research Laboratories, Yorktown Heights, USA, where he was part of the team that developed one of the first scanning tunnelling microscopes. Upon moving to Cambridge in 1985 he set up the first tunnelling microscopy group in the UK and in 1991 he began the nanoscience research group.
He established a purpose built facility at the University of Cambridge, the Nanoscience Centre, which undertakes a variety of nano-related research programmes of an interdisciplinary nature. This was the base for the Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) in Nanotechnology of which Mark was the Director and whose highly successful legacy has been far reaching. He has strong commercial interests which include both directing the substantial Nokia/Cambridge research activity centred around Nanoscience and the Open Access facility that supports commercial exploitation of nanoscience funded by the UK Government TSB (The Technology and Strategy Board).
In 2002 Mark gave the annual Turing Lecture, in 2003 was appointed the annual Sterling Lecturer in India and in 2007 gave the annual Max Planck Society lecture in Stuttgart, Germany. He was a winner of the Red Dot Award for Technical Innovation in 2008. He was elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2002, Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002 and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2002.
Mark has many contributions at an International level and leads the UK side of the World Premier International (WPI) Research Centre Initiative, a 200 million USD program sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in Japan. He is Co-Director of the Science and Technology Research Centre at the American University in Cairo, Egypt that he co-founded in 2003. In recognition of his work with India, Mark was elected as a Foreign Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences India in 2008.
In addition to his scientific work Mark has been involved in a number of reports, national and international, dealing with the societal, ethical and environmental issues of nanotechnology and was a member of the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering Nanotechnology Study Working Group that reported to the UK Government in July 2004.
He has taken part in many television and radio programmes for the BBC, SKY, Open University and University of the Air, Japan and written articles for the Guardian, FT and The Times in the UK
Keynote Speaker #2:
Professor J. William Schopf
Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life
University of California, Los Angeles
Professor Schopf will present a talk entitled "The Early History of Life: Solution to Darwin's Dilemma." He will show how confocal laser scanning microscopy and Raman spectroscopy have elucidated the earliest history of life on Earth. The application of these techniques, now less than a decade old, has helped resolve a dilemma that Darwin faced in 1859, namely, that though evolution was supported by the fossil record of plants and animals, no earlier evidence of life was known. Such evidence has been unearthed. What was unknown and presumed unknowable, is no longer so to us.
Director of the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life at the University of California, Los Angeles, J. William Schopf received his undergraduate training in geology at Oberlin College, Ohio, and his Ph.D. degree, in biology, from Harvard University. A member of the UCLA faculty since 1968, he has received all of his university's campus-wide faculty awards: for teaching, research, and academic excellence. A leader in studies of the Precambrian (earliest 85%) history of life and discoverer of the oldest evidence of life now known, he has pioneered the use of confocal laser scanning microscopy and Raman spectroscopy to analyze the three-dimensional cellular anatomy and chemistry of ancient rock-embedded fossil microbes. Prof. Schopf is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is recipient of three national book prizes and of medals from the National Science Board, the National Academy of Science, and the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life; twice he has been awarded Guggenheim Fellowships.