ORNL’s Chi elected Fellow of the Microscopy Society of America

Newswise — Miaofang Chi, a scientist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elected a Fellow of the Microscopy Society of America, or MSA. MSA Fellows are senior distinguished members who have made significant contributions to the advancement of the field of microscopy and microanalysis through a combination of scientific achievement and service to the scientific community. Chi is one of three fellows elected to the 2022 class.

As a scientist at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Chi is a member of the Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy group and develops techniques to advance the study of a broad range of energy materials, including lithium-ion batteries and fuel-cell catalysts.

She has been recognized for pioneering efforts to explore the function of battery materials at the atomic scale, having been twice awarded ORNL’s top science honor — the Director’s Award for Outstanding Individual Accomplishment in Science and Technology in 2015 and 2021. She was named a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher in 2018, 2020 and 2021. Chi was also a DOE Early Career Research Program Award recipient in 2019. She has previously been honored by MSA with a Burton Medal Award in 2016 and by the Microanalysis Society, or MAS, with the Kurt Heinrich Award in 2019. 

"Miaofang is a world-leading microscopist who is recognized for developing and applying advanced microscopy methods to study the behavior of materials," said ORNL’s Karren More, CNMS director. "She is always ready to take on the most challenging problems that can only be answered with atomic-level imaging and spectroscopy. It has been an absolute pleasure watching Miaofang's career evolve and advance over the past decade, and I expect she will continue to aim even higher in the years to come."

Chi received her doctorate in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Davis. Prior to joining ORNL in 2008, she was a visiting scholar at the National Center for Electron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a research fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

She is a member of MSA, MAS and the Materials Research Society.

The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences is a DOE Office of Science user facility.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.