4th Frontiers in Electron and Scanning Probe Microscopy for the Physical and Life Sciences

Draft Agenda

October 19 - 21, 2026
Please note that talk days and times are subject to change.

Day 1 – Monday, October 19, 2026

8:00 - 8:50 a.m.
Registration check-in and Breakfast

8:50 - 9:00 a.m.
Opening Remarks

Session I: Cryo-EM

9:00 - 10:00 a.m.
Keynote Talk: Study and understanding protein dynamic
Yifan Cheng (University of California San Francisco and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA)

10:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Adrian Ferré-D'Amaré (National Institutes of Health, USA)

10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Coffee Break

11:00 - 11:30 a.m.
New frontiers for cryo-EM in energy and health
Yuzhang Li (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)

11:30 - 12:30 p.m.
Meet the Editors Session

12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Lunch

Session II: AI

2:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Yang Shao-Horn (MIT, USA)

2:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Peter Crozier (Arizona State University, USA)

3:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Speaker TBA

3:30 - 4:00 p.m.
Coffee Break

4:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Ellen Zhong (Princeton University, USA)

4:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Building a fully automated cryo-EM data processing pipeline with foundation models
Huaizong Shen (Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART), China)

5:00 - 6:30 p.m.
Welcome Reception

Day 2 – Tuesday, October 20, 2026

8:00 - 9:00 a.m.
Registration check-in and Breakfast

Session III: Scanning Probe

9:00 - 10:00 a.m.
Keynote Talk: Quantum sensing of quantum matter
Amir Yacoby (Harvard University, USA)

10:00 - 10:30 a.m.
Scanning SQUID microscopy
Kathryn Ann Moler (Stanford University, USA)

10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Coffee Break

11:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Franz Giessibl (University of Regensburg, Germany)

11:30 - 12:30 p.m.
Flash Talks
Flash talks will be chosen from our pool of abstract submissions and will be 3-5 minutes in length.

12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Lunch

Session IV: Scanning EM

2:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Aaron Kuan (Yale University, USA)

2:30 - 3:00 p.m.
Karen Bustillo (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA)

3:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Speaker TBA

3:30 - 4:00 p.m.
Coffee Break

4:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Miyoung Kim (Seoul National University, South Korea)

4:30 - 5:00 p.m.
In-situ (scanning) transmission electron microscopy to understand electrocatalyst materials
Drew Higgins (McMaster University, Canada)

5:00 - 6:30 p.m.
Poster Session & Reception

Day 3 – Wednesday, October 21, 2026

8:00 - 9:00 a.m.
Registration check-in and Breakfast

Session V: Cryo-ET

9:00 - 10:00 a.m.
Keynote Talk: Qian Chen (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)

10:00 - 10:30 a.m.
John Jimah (Princeton University, USA)

10:30 - 11:00 a.m.
Coffee Break

11:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Novel benchmark samples for the cryoET pipeline, from data collection to sub-tomogram averaging
Reza Paraan (Biohub, USA)

11:30 - 12:30 p.m.
Careers Panel
Details TBA

12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Closing Remarks & Lunch

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Available On Demand

Confirmed Speakers

Qian Chen University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

Yifan Cheng University of California San Francisco and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA

Dr. Yifan Cheng is currently an Investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at University of California San Francisco (UCSF). He received his Ph.D. degree in 1991 from Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). From 1991 to 1996, he continued his research in solid state physics and electron microscopy as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Oslo (NTNF Fellow) and Max-Planck-Institute of Metal Research (Alexander von Humboldt Fellow). In 1996, he changed his research direction to structural biology, and received further training in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) from Professors Kenneth Taylor at Florida State University and Yoshinori Fujiyoshi at Kyoto University. In 1999, he joined the laboratory of Thomas Walz to setup a cryo-EM operation at Harvard Medical School. He started his independent career in 2006, joining the faculty of UCSF and has stayed there ever since. He has been an HHMI Investigator since 2015. He is the recipient of the Christian B. Anfinsen Award from The Protein Society (2018) and Anatrase Membrane Protein Award from Biophysical Society (2026), elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Science (2019) and National Academy of Sciences (2020).

His laboratory uses cryo-EM to study structures of biological macromolecules, particularly integral membrane proteins and dynamic complexes. In addition, development of cryo-EM methodology for structural biology is also a long-lasting interest of his laboratory. Previous works of his laboratory include developments of algorithms to correct electron beam-induced image motion and determination of the first atomic structure of TRPV1 by single particle cryo-EM, etc.

Amir Yacoby Harvard University, USA

Amir Yacoby is a Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University. He received his bachelor’s degree in the field of Aerospace engineering and then transitioned into Physics. Following a Master’s degree in theoretical Physics, Yacoby received his PhD in experimental condensed matter physics in 1994 from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Professor Yacoby is a member of the National Academy of Science, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow of the American Physical Society, member of the American Academy for Advancement of Science and an external member of the Max Plank Society.

Professor Yacoby works to develop new experimental techniques to explore quantum matter and uses these techniques to obtain new insights into their underlying quantum mechanical properties.

Karen Bustillo Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA

Peter Crozier Arizona State University, USA

Adrian Ferré-D’Amaré National Institutes of Health, USA

Franz Giessibl University of Regensburg, Germany

Drew Higgins McMaster University, Canada

Drew is an Associate Professor and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McMaster University, where their research focuses on sustainable electrochemical energy technology development. Particularly, their team focuses on applications including electrochemical CO2 conversion, rechargeable zinc-ion batteries, supercapacitors, water electrolyzers and biomass valorization processes. Their research covers the synthesis of new nanostructured electrode materials and their integration into electrochemical technologies, as well as developing advanced understanding of material performance through the development and implementation of in situ characterization techniques. Previously Drew completed their PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo in 2015, with their thesis involving the synthesis, characterization, and device integration of nanostructured oxygen reduction catalysts for low temperature fuel cells. During this time, they spent approximately one year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory working. In 2015, Drew started a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University in the Department of Chemical Engineering and in 2017 was promoted to an Associate Staff Scientist at Stanford University / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where they oversaw research activities focusing on discovering and understanding new electrocatalyst compositions and structures for a variety of important electrochemical reactions, including water oxidation, CO2 reduction, oxygen reduction and methane activation. More details are available at: https://www.higginslab.com/.

John Jimah Princeton University, USA

John Jimah is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. His laboratory investigates the molecular mechanisms of membrane remodeling in human cells and eukaryotic parasites, using cryo-electron microscopy and tomography (cryo-EM and cryo-ET) alongside biochemical and cell biological approaches.

He has contributed to our understanding of the structural mechanisms by which membrane architecture is maintained or remodeled, including how human dynamin assembles to drive membrane fission during endocytosis, how dynamin organizes actin during cell-cell fusion, and how the bacterial β-barrel assembly machinery mediates outer membrane protein folding. He also studied the malaria parasite protein CelTOS, a multistage vaccine target, and how it disrupts host membranes to enable parasite traversal through host cells. Dr. Jimah earned his B.A. in Molecular Biology from Colgate University and his Ph.D. in Biology and Biomedical Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis, and he completed postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health. His work has been recognized by the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and the NIGMS MOSAIC K99/R00 award. Overall, his research seeks to define structural principles of membrane remodeling across diverse cellular contexts.

Miyoung Kim Seoul National University, South Korea

Aaron Kuan Yale University, USA

Yuzhang Li University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Yuzhang Li is an Associate Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA. He received his bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University. The long-term goal of the Li group@UCLA is to invent new tools and materials that address important challenges in sustainability and health. For example, we are leading efforts to leverage the powerful cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) tool to address grand challenges in sustainability. These efforts have led to significant breakthroughs in our understanding of batteries (Science 358, 506, 2017; Science 375, 66, 2022) and electrocatalysts (Nature Energy 8, 138, 2023), which represent important clean energy technologies necessary for securing energy resilience and security. New insights then inform parallel efforts in materials innovations (Nature 620, 86, 2023; Nature Energy 10, 502, 2025) that will enable transformative technologies. Yuzhang’s research has been highlighted by news media including Forbes, Popular Mechanics, and ABC7 Bay Area, while also being recognized with several awards, including the Packard Fellowship, Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Forbes 30 Under 30, and young investigator awards from the NSF, DOE, NIH, DOD, ACS, and ECS.

Kathryn Ann Moler Stanford University, USA

Kathryn A. “Kam” Moler is the Marvin Chodorow Professor at Stanford University, where she previously served as Vice Provost and Dean of Research from 2018 to 2023 and currently serves as Vice President for SLAC. A physicist with both a B.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford, her work has been recognized by her election to the National Academy of Sciences and as a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Her other notable honors include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and the William L. McMillan Award for outstanding contributions in condensed matter physics.

Reza Paraan Biohub, USA

I am a team leader at biohub (formerly known as CZ Imaging Institute). My research focuses on benchmarking the cryoET pipeline from data collection to sub-tomogram averaging (STA) of protein complexes. For this, we develop novel benchmark samples such as the phantom (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02800-5) that was used for benchmarking particle picking (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.03.686153v1), and other samples such as E.coli overexpressing virus-like particles (https://cryoetdataportal.czscience.com/datasets/10455) to study the effects of tomogram quality on STA. We collaborate with cryoET tool developers and machine learning developers to push the limits of sub-tomogram averaging and in situ structural biology.

Yang Shao-Horn MIT, USA

Huaizong Shen Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART), China

Dr. Huaizong Shen leads the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Biological Structure at the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation (SMART). His research integrates structural biology with artificial intelligence to decipher the structure and function of pharmaceutically important ion channels and membrane receptors. By developing novel AI-driven methods, his team aims to democratize cryo-EM technology and accelerate the discovery of novel therapeutic targets and drug precursors. Dr. Shen has authored landmark studies in top-tier journals and is a recipient of China's Excellent Young Scientist Fund and national high-level talent awards.

Ellen Zhong Princeton University, USA