Scottish Microscopy Society celebrate presentation of award for inspirational work

Congratulations go to RMS Early Career Section Chair, Dr Liam Rooney, who has been announced as the ‘Scottish Microscopist of the Year’.

The award, bestowed for the very first time by the Scottish Microscopy Society, celebrates inspirational and outstanding contributions to the Scottish Microscopy community. Based at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences (University of Strathclyde), Liam conducts research covering both microscopy and microbiology, using innovative optical imaging methods to study various microbial phenomena: how bacteria interact, form communities, contribute to disease and how to treat infections more effectively.

In addition to his own research, Liam has been actively engaged in RMS activities for several years. He joined the Society as a PhD student in 2016, going on to become a member of the Life Sciences Section Committee in 2018 and then Chair of the Early Career Committee in 2020. He is also involved with the Microbiology Society.

Liam said: “Winning this award came as a great surprise and an honour. I'm so grateful for the support I've had from mentors, colleagues, and learned societies. I'm really lucky to have such a supportive research environment and mentors who encourage me to explore my curiosities. Professor Gail McConnell and Professor Paul Hoskisson (University of Strathclyde) have been fantastic champions and mentors, and I'm really thankful for their support.

He added: “The RMS has also been overwhelmingly supportive of my journey and afforded me the freedom to work with great teams across the society. I've had the luxury of spanning two dynamic fields - microscopy and microbiology. Having involvement with both the RMS and the Microbiology Society has been a great way to straddle the boundary and connect communities.”
 
As part of the award, Liam received a £500 cash prize and he also gave a talk at the Scottish Microscopy Society’s 49th annual symposium which was hosted in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Dundee.

The JEOL-sponsored keynote lecture at the symposium held on Nov 7, was presented by Dr Laura Young from the University of Newcastle. Dr Young’s research combines optical instrumentation and psychophysical research, developing adaptive optics systems to study human vision – from imaging the light sensitive cells in the retina in vivo to studying the impact of refractive disorders on visual performance.

There were also invited talks from Dr Ramasubramanian Sundaramoorthy about CryoEM at Dundee, Dr Callum Graham about using microscopy for conservation, Prof Carlos Penedo about C-TRAP optical trapping at University of St Andrews and Dr Simon Plummer about using micromatricies for your research.  

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