Inaugural Microscopy Society of America fellow

Yimei Zhu, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, has been elected the inaugural Fellow of the Microscopy Society of America. The designation recognizes senior distinguished members of the society who have made significant contributions to the advancement of the science and practice of microscopy.

Zhu will formally receive the award at the Microscopy and Microanalysis conference, the society’s annual meeting held in Richmond, Virginia later this month. His citation reads: “For outstanding and innovative development and implementation of advanced electron microscopy techniques including quantitative diffraction, imaging, spectroscopy, and phase retrieval methods in understanding superconducting, ferromagnetic, and strongly correlated materials.”

Zhu’s research has included the study of the structure and properties of materials such as thermoelectirics that can convert heat to electricity, superconductors that can conduct electricity with no energy loss, and materials that can be used in magneto-electronic devices at nano-scale dimensions for applications ranging from digital communication to data storage.

Zhu earned a B.S. in materials physics from JiaoTong University, Shanghai, in 1982, and was one of the first few students selected in China to pursue graduate study abroad after the country opened its doors to the West. He received his M.S. and Ph.D., also in materials physics, from Nagoya University, Japan. He is now a senior scientist at Brookhaven and an adjunct professor at Columbia University and Stony Brook University.