What does your job and research involve?
I am a full professor in the Department of Physics, within the Electron Microscopy for Materials Science (EMAT) research group. My research focuses on solving crystal structures using electron crystallography. In addition to my research activities, I have taught courses in physics, crystallography, and microscopy in recent years. Over the next five years, however, I will temporarily reduce part of my teaching duties. I have been awarded an Advanced ERC Grant, which allows me to take on a more research-focused role with a lighter teaching load for the duration of the project.
What motivates you in your research and job, and what makes it so fascinating or challenging?
I am driven by a desire to keep learning new things, and my job is ideal for that. Not only can I continuously gain new knowledge through my research, but I also teach students from programmes with completely different interests and backgrounds, which gives me new opportunities to learn as well. Students ask questions from very different perspectives and make you reflect on things that you might otherwise take for granted.
In my research, I can collaborate with scientists from a wide range of disciplines, because crystal structure plays a crucial role in many scientific and application areas. Crystal structure influences how much energy a material can generate or store, how quickly it degrades, how it reacts, and so on. As a result, my PhD students include materials, ceramic, and electrical engineers, as well as chemists—not only physicists. This leads to interesting discussions in which we learn a great deal from one another.
At present, we are jointly developing a technique called 5D ED, which enables us to map the crystal structure of an entire submicroscopic particle using electron diffraction, down to the level of individual unit cells. With a transmission electron microscope, one can obtain atomic-resolution images, but only in very thin regions (at most a few tens of nanometres). Mapping all atoms in nanoparticles is currently only feasible for very simple structures and extremely small particles. X-ray diffraction, by contrast, allows complex crystal structures to be determined, but requires at least one dimension of the particle to be several micrometres to produce sufficient signal.
Our 5D ED technique would make it possible to determine complex structures from the nanometre to the micrometre scale at unit-cell resolution. Moreover, we can track these structures under changing conditions or during reactions set up in situ inside the microscope. This allows us to gain insight into how materials evolve under environmental influences, during degradation, or during operation in, for example, batteries or solar cells.
Why is diversity (in gender, background, perspectives) so important in science? And what could still be improved?
Diversity makes it possible to approach problems from different angles, often leading to deeper understanding and alternative solutions. Yet there is still room for improvement, for example when it comes to bias in the peer-review process of scientific publications. Factors such as gender, background, nationality, and even the familiarity of the authors or their institution still influence the likelihood of acceptance.
Introducing double-blind reviewing—where both reviewers and authors remain anonymous—would significantly reduce the impact of these biases.
Do you have any tips for future scientists?
Try to see everything as an opportunity to learn something new, even when it falls outside your current focus. Such knowledge often leads, unexpectedly and later on, to synergy, allowing you to combine insights from different fields into something new.