
Conference Committee
Conference Chairs

Associate Professor Martin Saunders
Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis,
The University of Western Australia
Martin is Facility Director of the West Australian node of Microscopy Australia at UWA and leads the CMCA’s Physical Science Electron Microscopy Platform. With a background in Physics, Martin is interested in the development and application of electron microscopy techniques, which he applies to a wide variety of research problems across the physical, biological, and geological sciences. An active participant in the Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Society since his arrival in the country in 2001, Martin has held the positions of President (2012-18) and Newsletter Editor (2002-10), and has been involved in organising three major microscopy meetings in Australia: ACMM20/IUMAS4 (Perth, 2008); ACMM22/APMC10 (Perth, 2012); ACMM25/IMC18 (Sydney, 2018), and many other microscopy events locally, nationally, and internationally.

Associate Professor Peta Clode
Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis,
The University of Western Australia
Peta is Platform Leader of Biosciences Electron Microscopy at CMCA, Deputy Director Microscopy Australia (WA Node), the WA Representative of CryOz, and a member of the Microscopy Australia National Education Committee. She has organised local, national, and international symposia and been an invited speaker at both national and international events. Her research interests extend across plant nutrition and environmental tolerances, marine symbioses, biomimetic systems, and wildlife pathogens. With this her microscopy expertise crosses optical, ion, electron, and X-ray platforms.
Organising Committee

Dr Zakaria Quadir
Head of Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility, John de Laeter Centre, Curtin University
Zakaria Quadir is the Facility Leader of the Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility (MMF) within Curtin University’s research infrastructure hub John de Laeter Centre (JdLC). He also serves as the WA representative of AMMS and Curtin co-ordinator of the 3D printing research hub, Microfactory for Additive Manufacturing. Quadir is a physical metallurgist and electron microscopist, and has organized large national and international events. Quadir presented many invited and keynote lectures in international conferences in the area of metal processing, severe plastic deformation, recrystallisation and grain growth and advanced characterisations.

Dr Jeremy Shaw
Dr Shaw is platform leader for X-ray CT imaging at UWA’s Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation and Analysis. In addition to his role on the AMMS executive as Newsletter Editor, Dr Shaw is the interim President of the newly formed AMMS special interest group Volume Imaging Australia. A marine biologist by training, Dr Shaw’s interests focus on the use of X-ray and electron microscope techniques to study structure and function in biominerals (teeth, bone, shell), but is more broadly interested in multi-modal applications of microscopy for the study of all biological, geological and synthetic materials.

Dr Benjamin Padman
Ben is an early career research fellow, who recently joined the CMCA at the University of Western Australia after conducting his PhD and postdoctoral studies at the Monash Biomedical Discovery Institute in Melbourne. Ben has a passion for answering intractable biomedical research questions, and with 8 years of experience in the development of multi-modal imaging techniques, his research interests span any and all forms of microscopy.

Melissa Narbey
Melissa has 30 years experience in the resources sector starting as an analytical chemist. She is AXT’s representative in Western Australia and is the company’s BDO for Geological Sciences and Mining and Resources and also the Manager of the AXT’s Automated Mineralogy Incubator, which offers service for research and industry for some of AXT’s more innovative technologies for mineral analysis.

Dr Crystal Cooper
Research Fellow (CryoEM), Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis, The University of Western Australia

Jeanette Hatch
Administrative Officer, Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation and Analysis, The University of Western Australia
Program Committee

Associate Professor Martin Saunders
Physical Sciences Program Chair
Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis,
The University of Western Australia

Associate Professor Peta Clode
Biological Sciences Program Chair
Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis,
The University of Western Australia

Dr William Rickard
AMAS Representative
Deputy Director of the John de Laeter Centre
Senior Research Fellow | Facility Leader ToF-SIMS / FIB-SEM / XPS
Dr Rickard is a Research Academic and the Deputy Director of the John de Laeter Centre at Curtin University. He is an experienced materials scientist with research interests in micro- to nano-scale chemistry and structure of minerals and materials. He has over a decade of experience working with electron, ion and x-ray microscopy and micro-analytical techniques. Dr Rickard has worked in industry and academia in Australia and overseas. He joined the John de Laeter Centre in 2014 and became Deputy Director in 2019. He has been on the organising committee for AXAA-2014 & 2017 conferences and is the chair of the AMAS 2021 online seminar series. He currently holds the position of President of the Australian Microbeam Analysis Society.

Dr Paul McMillan
LMA Representative
Manager, Centre for Advanced Histology & Microscopy,
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Dr Paul McMillan is the manager of the Centre for Advanced Histology & Microscopy at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. He is an active member of the Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis society, holding the position of VIC rep (2018 – 2022), LMA Secretary (2019 – 2022) and is the current LMA President (2022-). He has been involved in the organisation of numerous local and national microscopy symposia, including ACMM24 and LMA2017. He obtained a PhD in Molecular Parasitology from the University of Glasgow, followed by postdoctoral positions in the lab of Prof. Leann Tilley at the University of Melbourne. Here he utilised advanced microscopy techniques to investigate the malaria parasite and has published widely on the application of super-resolution microscopy techniques. In 2013, he was the inaugural manager of the Biological Optical Microscopy Platform at the University of Melbourne, a position that he held until moving to Peter Mac in late 2020.

Associate Professor Georg Ramm
CryOz Representative
Associate Professor (Research), Cryo Electron Microscopy,
Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute
A/Prof Georg Ramm is a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Imaging Scientist and a group leader in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Monash University. Georg trained as a microscopist, cell biologist, and biochemist during a PhD at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and during undergraduate and diploma degrees in Germany. At Monash University, he established the Ramaciotti Centre for Cryo-EM, which enables both cell and structural biology EM with imaging expertise in immuno EM, correlative light and electron microscopy, volume imaging, single particle cryo-EM and cryo-electron tomography.
His research is using high resolution imaging by cryo-electron tomography in combination with cryo-focused ion beam milling to understand cellular architecture and intracellular trafficking. His research focuses on fundamental cell biological problems that are relevant to human diseases including the intracellular degradation of organelles by autophagy and mitophagy, mitochondrial ultrastructure and dynamics in healthy and stressed cells, and cellular structural changes during cell death.

Dr Jing Fu
FIB Representative
Senior Lecturer, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University
Dr Jing Fu is a senior lecturer and group leader in the Faculty of Engineering, Monash University. First trained in manufacturing engineering, he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2008 where he completed various projects in the fields of electron/ion imaging and nanotechnology. The “world’s first” achievements included the integration of cryo-FIB/SEM with cryo-TEM (Titan Krios) and atom probe tomography (APT), aiming for exploring biological cells at atomic resolution. His main research focus is to develop novel correlative approaches combining light, electron and Synchrotron radiation sources to investigate the molecular signatures of biological targets. He was among the first affiliates of the US FIB SEM user group, and actively works with multidisciplinary teams to build up the microscopy and nanotechnology infrastructures in Australia.

Dr Jeremy Shaw
Volume Imaging Representative
Senior Research Officer, Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis, The University of Western Australia
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