Staff
Director
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Andreas Holzenburg joined Texas A&M University in October 2000 as Director of the MIC and Professor of Biology. His first experiences with the electron optical world go back to the early 1980s when he earned some extra pennies working as an undergraduate research assistant at the Max-Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine while studying Biology (Microbiology, Botany, Organic Chemistry) at the University of Göttingen (FR Germany). Here he received his MSc (1984) and PhD (1987) working on the structure-function relationships of bacterial (L8S8) RuBisCO using a combination of biochemical and electron microscopical technologies under the supervision of Prof. F. Mayer. In July 1987 he joined the Maurice E. Müller - Institute at the Biocenter of the University of Basel where he gained expertise in the purification and 2-D crystallisation of membrane proteins. In 1989, he was awarded a Feodor-Lynen Research Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to carry out research on anaerobic cellulose degradation in the laboratory of Prof. L.G. Ljungdahl at the University of Georgia in Athens (USA). From January 1991 until September 2000, he was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the School of Biochemistry & Mol. Biology and the School of Biology at the University of Leeds (UK). During the years 1999 and 2000 he was invited as Visiting Professor to the Institute of Virology at the University of Marburg (FR Germany). In recognition of his achievements in the field of molecular structural biology using electron microscopy/crystallography, he received the 1994 Biology Prize from the German Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. He is generally interested in structure-function relationships of membrane and membrane-associated (and "associatable"!) proteins using an interdisciplinary approach, i.e. combining electron microscopical/ crystallographical studies with other biophysical and also biochemical techniques. The major research tool for structural work is the transmission electron microscope. |
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Assistant to Director |
Mildred Richards is the Assistant to the Director. She has been with the Center since 1982. Her current responsibilities include the management of day-to-day operations of the business office, supervision of the support staff, budget preparation, monthly reporting and projects performed in support of the director. Mildred is from the local area. |
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Business Associate II |
Aimee Curington is the Business Associate. She has been with the Center since 2003. |
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Assistant Research Scientist |
Tom Stephens is an Assistant Research Scientist. He has been at the MIC for over 15 years. Tom's responsibilities include maintenance, consulting work and training for the Atomic Force microscope, laser scanning confocal microscope, Zeiss Axiophot, and various image processing systems, as well as overseeing of the NFS network. Tom is originally from Wisconsin. He received his B.S. degree at the University of Wisconsin and M.S. degree from Texas A&M in Zoology. His research interests include aculeate hymenopteran ecology and evolution. |
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Senior Research Associate 979-845-5928 |
Rick Littleton is a Senior Research Associate with the Microscopy and Imaging Center. He joined the MIC staff in 1994 after working in the graphic design and photography industry then later as a consultant in wetland ecology and management. His duties include training, operation, and maintenance of the Electro Scan E-3 Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM), training on the Nikon Stereo light microscope, and assisting in training and operation on the JEOL 6400 Scanning Electron Microscope. Rick's duties also include preparation and microtomy of TEM samples using the Ultracut E Microtome and overseeing the Center's entire photographic facilities. Rick received a B.S. degree in Dairy Manufacturing from Texas A&M University in 1982 and a B.S. in Wildlife Ecology in 1992. Prior to working for the MIC he consulted on wetland delineation projects using physiological and morphological adaptation of plant species occurring in potential wetland areas. Rick also worked to identify the impact of bird populations as they relate to plant diversity in the management of seasonally flooded wetlands. |
Dr. Zhiping Luo Research Scientist 979-862-2883
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Zhiping Luo joined the Microscopy and Imaging Center in July 2001 as a staff scientist in support of electron microscopy studies in material sciences. He works in the key areas of research, service and teaching, supervises and educates users with a special emphasis on the JEOL 2010 and FEI Tecnai F20 microscopes. Zhiping has been working with the electron microscopy of materials for over 15 years and has extensive experience with a wide range of physical materials, including composites (polymer nanocomposites and metal-matrix composites), nanomaterials (nanoparticles, nanowires and nanotubes), ceramic oxides and superconductors, thin films, fibers, minerals, magnets, complex intermetallics, and various kinds of metals and alloys. Before joining Texas A&M University, Zhiping worked in the Materials Science Division of the Argonne National Laboratory as a Visiting Scholar and then became an Assistant Scientist. He also spent two years in Okayama University of Science, Japan, as a postdoctoral researcher to study electron microscopy techniques with Professor Hatsujiro Hashimoto. Zhiping received his Ph.D. from Chinese Aeronautical Establishment (CAE) in 1994 working on the structure-property of aerospace magnesium alloys. During these studies, he observed novel Mg-Zn-RE (RE: rare earth) quasicrystals and thus promoted the studies in such a field. His research interest is on the material structures correlating with their properties. |
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Senior Research Associate 979-845-9584 ellisa@mic.tamu.edu |
Ann Ellis has 30 plus years experience in biological electron microscopy including plants, insects and animal models and also has a solid background in correlative microscopy. For the past 15 years she has worked with animal models of disease processes and used combined methods of cytochemical localization and immunocytochemistry. One of her strong points is in developing and/or modifying methods for the preparation and analysis of specimens thast are challenging to deal with from a specimen preparation point of view. In line with this, Ann's favorite saying is "If we don't have a method, we develop one". |
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Research Associate 979-845-1182 |
Mike Pendleton received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Texas A&M University in 1993. He has been employed as an archeological surveyor in a national forest, as a consultant at archeological sites, and as a biological technician for the Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, U.S.D.A. He studied, for instance, insect migration and foraging patterns by the analysis of pollen adhering to their bodies. Mike has mainly used SEM techniques for his archeological and biologcal research. In the Center, he is strengthening the workforce in both, TEM and SEM analysis. |
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Stan Vitha received his M.S. from the University of South Bohemia in Ceské Budejovice, Faculty of Agronomy (Czech republic) in Genetic Engineering and Plant Breeding in 1989. His graduate studies investigated methodical and biological aspects of ß-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene expression in transgenic plants. In 1995 he received his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the Faculty of Biology, University of South Bohemia (advisor Prof. Karel Beneš). The graduate research was done in the Institute of Plant Molecular Biology (Czech Academy of Sciences, Ceské Budejovice), DeMontfort University, Leicester, England (with Dr. Kevan Gartland) and University of Bonn, Germany (with Prof. Dieter Volkmann). Stan participated in postdoctoral research from 1996 to 1998 with Dr. Fred Sack at Ohio State University and it focused on gravitropism and phototropism in Arabidopsis and Nicotiana mutants with altered starch metabolism. From 1998 to 2004, Stan was a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Katherine Osteryoung, first at University of Nevada, Reno, then at Michigan State University in East Lansing, studying the localization and functions of known chloroplast division proteins and discovering new ones. Stan joined the Microscopy and Imaging Center in August 2004. His current interest is chloroplast-localized J-domain proteins in plants and his favorite light-microscopic techniques include immunofluorescence, GFP imaging and 3-D reconstruction from optical sections. |
 Dr. Christos Savva Assitant Research Scientist
979-862-0227
 Dr. Hansoo Kim
Associate Research Scientist
979-862-8452
Kori Weyand
Student Worker
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I received my BSc in Genetics and Microbiology in 2000 from the University of Leeds (UK) and enrolled at Texas A&M University the same year to begin studying for my Ph.D in the Department of Biology. My research interests are in structural biology and specifically in the study of macromolecular assemblies using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Using electron micrographs obtained by TEM and a computational technique called “single particle analysis” 3D structural information of proteins and their complexes can be obtained to a resolution better than 3 nm. For my Ph.D, I structurally characterized several macromolecules including the SecA translocase from M. tuberculosis and the bacteriophage lambda holin S105. My position at the MIC is to assist and train researchers who want to study their favorite protein complex or particles by TEM in conjunction with digital image analysis. Our latest TEM addition, the FEI Tecnai F-20 allows for high-resolution 3D reconstructions of not only protein complexes but also of intact cells and organelles by cryo-electron tomography.
Hansoo Kim joined the Microscopy and Imaging Center at TAMU in January 2008 as an Associate Research Scientist. He recieved his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Florida at Gainesville in 2003. He preformed his postdoctoral researches at University of Pennsylvania before he became a research scientist at the University of North Texas. His research area has been synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials, morphological study on ionic polymers (ionomers), characterization of metallic composites. For these researches various kinds of conventional and advanced scanning and transmission electron microscopes have been major analytical tools. His research interests are analysis of materials for crystallographic, physical and chemical properties along with tomography of 3d-shaped materials using the analytical transmission electron microscopy TECNAI F20 and JEOL 2010.
Kori Weyand is the student worker at Microscopy and Imaging Center. She is majoring in Human Resource Development with a minor in Business. |
