Professor Steve Pressé
Arizona State University
Computationally unraveling life’s events below light’s diffraction limit
Location: 4138 Physics Research Building
Abstract: Fluorescence microscopy allows us to create contrast between labeled molecules of interest and background in order to directly monitor labeled macromolecules inside cells. That is, fluorescence microscopy allows us to gather insights on macromolecular actors as these dynamically perform tasks relevant to life. An important factor limiting the spatial resolution accessible by fluorescence microscopy, and ultimately what we learn from the data, is set by optics and the wavelength of light emitted. This limiting factor, termed the “diffraction limit”, has been overcome in assessing static structures yet “superresolving" dynamical features below light’s diffraction limit remains an open challenge. Here we extend the superresolution paradigm to dynamics and discuss how this is achieved leveraging recent tools from computational statistics and numerical optics. As time allows, we will discuss applications to aberrated optics and structured illumination microscopy.
Bio: Steve was born in Montreal and completed his undergraduate degree in Chemistry at McGill University (2000-2003). Steve then completed his PhD at MIT in Chemical Physics (2003-2008) under the supervision of Robert J. Silbey before moving to UC San Francisco in Biophysics for a postdoc with Ken A. Dill (2008-2012). Steve was Assistant Professor at IUPUI in Physics from 2013-2017 before moving to ASU with a joint appointment in Physics and Chemistry as Associate Professor. He was promoted to Full in 2021. Steve’s research is currently funded by the ARO, NSF and NIH and lies at the intersection of biophysics, applied mathematics, statistical physics, and advanced imaging. Of particular interest to his lab are questions pertaining to resolving dynamical events within cells and tissues from spectroscopic and microscopy data.
Photos from Colloquium:
