In Memory of Roger Wepf (°1962 – † 04.06.2026)
It is with great sadness that we have to inform the members of the European Microscopy Society that after a long illness, our highly respected colleague Roger Wepf passed away on 8th of June, 2026. Electron microscopy and imaging in general was Roger’s big passion. He was deeply committed to advancing imaging technology and to the preparation of biological specimens in particular. Following positions in Zurich, Heidelberg, and Hamburg, he found an inspiring professional environment for the last 10 years in Brisbane, Australia. For over three decades, Roger has been driving the microscopy community forward with his remarkable enthusiasm and inspiration. Roger consistently kept an eye on upcoming developments, especially on the integration and combination of diverse techniques. As such, he was one of the initiators of the new microscopy journal, “Methods in Microscopy” which focusses on highlighting and describing the technical details of experimental approaches for any kind of microscopy. This initiative exemplifies Roger’s exceptional spirit; a great eye for important small details. As a highly collaborative colleague and friend, Roger will be greatly missed as an excellent scientist. We remember him not least for his role as President of the European Microscopy Society from 2012 to 2016, during which time he worked tirelessly to shape the field of electron microscopy in Europe and beyond. We will always remember Roger Wepf as a warm and valued colleague and friend, and we will deeply miss his presence and leadership. Thomas Müller-Reichert and Paul Verkade for the EMS board
In Memory of Andreas Engel (°1943 – † 01.04.2026)
It is with profound sadness that the EMS learned of the passing of Andreas Engel. Andreas was a pioneering figure in structural biology and a co-founder of the Maurice E. Müller Institute for Structural Biology at the Biozentrum, University of Basel. With his passing, the structural biology and biophysics communities have lost one of their most visionary, innovative, and influential scientists.Thoughtful obituaries and scientific tributes celebrating Andreas’s life and achievements can be found at the links below: https://www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/news/detail/obituary-for-prof-andreas-engel-1943-2026 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsb.2026.108324 In addition, we invited a researcher who spent many years in Andreas’s laboratory to share a personal remembrance, offering a unique perspective on Andreas as both a scientist and a mentor. This year, 2026, took Andreas Engel away but his spirit and driving force continue to inspire so many people today. As several members of the executive committee knew that I had spent many years in Andreas’s laboratory in Basel, I was kindly asked to write a few words about the man—whom I would describe as an unstoppable enthousiast. I will try to share here some memories I have of Res (this is how we called him). For my PhD defense in the nineties my doctoral supervisor, Alain Brisson wisely advised me to ask Andreas to be an external jury member, which he accepted without hesitation. This was the start of a long-lasting journey. Andreas helped me get grants and allowed me to join his group at the Maurice Müller Institute for High Resolution Electron Microscopy in the Biozentrum. As a post-doc, life in Basel was very exciting. Andreas had a vision of bringing together the strengths and talents of different people. For instance, one of the research topic at the time was aquaporins; these membrane proteins were investigated using both Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy resulting in numerous publications thanks to these complementary methods. Recalling some anecdotes, it was almost mandatory for a post-doc or visitor to follow Andreas in the “Rhein-schwimmen,” that is, swimming in the river during the lunch break on hot summer days. When going for hikes on Lab outings, Andreas always found shortcuts in the mountains, admittedly much longer, but offering many adventures. When he hired me in 2003, the position was part-time (80%), and he kindly asked my wife if my wages would be suitable, they were. I thoroughly enjoyed working on mass measurements with the old Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (STEM) that Andreas almost set up himself, this work involved collaboration with many people worldwide, including Vladislav Krzyzanek, our current EMS president. I was impressed by how Andreas explained and demonstrated how to exchange the Cold Field Emission Gun and align that microscope. We were convinced that he knew exactly how and where electrons travel in the microscopes! He was confident and truly believed I could do it myself but luckily, I never had to. Andreas made everything possible and had such a remarkable vision for the laboratory’s development. He created the Center for Cellular Imaging and NanoAnalytics (C-CINA) moving microscopes across the Rhein River to a new location suitable for hosting the first Titan Krios 200 kV in Switzerland (2009). As he approached the age of official retirement at the Biozentrum, he helped Prof. Henning Stahlberg take over the leadership of this huge laboratory. But he was unstoppable and continued working and pursue his dreams in Cleveland (USA) and Utrecht (the Netherlands). When returning to Basel he not only founded a startup called « Cryo-writer » but also actively contributed to the establishment of a cryo-EM facility in the industry at Roche Pharma pRED during the difficult COVID times. When listening to all the nice speeches from his family and relatives at his funeral ceremony last April 20th, other facets of this diamond that was Andreas were revealed to me. He was an amazing husband, father and grandfather, but also a jazz band banjo player, a great alpine soldier in the Swiss military, and a car lover and a skilled car mechanic. Speeches from former PhD students like Wanda Kukulski and Dimitri Fotiadis, who are now lab heads in Bern (Switzerland), were particularly emotional. We all miss Andreas Engel and he will forever remain in the memory of the vast international network of people he built during his full and very busy life. Philippe Ringer
In memory of Ueli Aebi (°1946 – † 28.11.2025)
The European Microscopy Society mourns the passing of Ueli Aebi, Emeritus Professor of Structural Biology and co-founder of the Maurice E. Müller Institute for Structural Biology at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. With his death, the Biozentrum has lost an outstanding scientist, a visionary architect of modern structural biology, and an exceptional mentor. We particularly remember his distinguished service as President of the European Microscopy Society from 2004 to 2008. During this important period, he contributed greatly to strengthening the European microscopy community, promoting scientific exchange, and fostering collaboration across disciplines and national borders. His vision, dedication, and leadership left a lasting impact on the microscopy community, and his contributions continue to inspire colleagues and researchers around the world. You can view touching obituaries by following these links: https://www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/news/detail/obituary-for-ueli-aebi-1946-2025 https://doi.org/10.1093/mictod/qaag033
In Memory of Peter Hawkes (°1937 – † 20.11.2024)
It is with a great sadness that we learned that Peter Hawkes passed away at his home in Toulouse, France, he was 87 years old. This loss resonates all the more for the EMS as Peter was the founder of our European Society. Peter will be remembered by all who knew him as a remarkable scientist, communicator and educator who made fundamental and ground-breaking progress in the world of electron optics, aberrations and digital imaging. Peter’s first foray into electron microscopy and into electron optics in particular was when as a fresh graduate student in 1959 he joined the ‘Electron Microscopy Group’ headed by Ellis Cosslett in the Physics Department of the University of Cambridge. At that time the Physics Department was still occupying the historic Cavendish Laboratory in the middle of Cambridge, where both the electron and neutron were first discovered (by Thomson and Chadwick, respectively). Peter’s interest and expertise in both physics and mathematics made him an ideal PhD candidate to study the fundamentals of electron optics. Cosslett gave Peter a series of papers by the mathematician Peter Sturrock – who had completed his PhD with Cosslett a few years previously – and told him to apply Sturrock’s eikonal methods to the aberrations of quadrupoles and related multipole lenses. Peter focussed in particular on the relationship between system symmetry and permitted aberrations, with the ultimate goal of proposing ways to correct for lens aberrations, and, in particular, the dominant spherical aberration of round lenses. He discovered that whilst quadrupoles have an unwanted linear focussing effect, sextupoles have no linear focussing effect and have aberrations of exactly the same nature as the spherical aberration of round lenses. Unfortunately sextupoles do suffer from second-order effects and that was sufficiently problematic that Peter did not pursue the sextupole design further. Of course, some years later, first Beck and then Crewe, Rose and others, showed that sextupole doublets could indeed provide correction. After his PhD, Peter remained in Cosslett’s group as a post-doctoral Research Fellow funded through a number of different institutions. Peter has written of his time both at Peterhouse and Churchill College, two of the Cambridge colleges where Peter was a Fellow, with great affection. He revelled in college life, mixing with other academics across many disciplines, not just in Physics or Mathematics, but also biology, philosophy, history and archaeology. He would tell of his time on the wine committee at Churchill, with the ‘demanding’ job of tasting and buying quantities of wine to lay down in the college’s large wine cellars. Peter continued to work in the area of electron optics with Cosslett and his group throughout the 1960s and the first half on the 1970s. His work was stimulated through breakthroughs, for example, by Deltrap, showing quadrupoles and octopoles can correct spherical aberration, and by Hardy demonstrating the correction of chromatic aberration. In 1966, together with other experts in electron optics from around the world, Peter spent a month at Argonne National Laboratory in the US, at a workshop organised by Albert Crewe. The workshop was there to design a high voltage aberration-corrected microscope, which led to a proposal to the US government. Unfortunately, the proposal was not funded – perhaps it was too far ahead of its time. During the 1960s computers were beginning to make their mark in the world of electron microscopy, initially in the design of new electron optical systems. Towards the end of that decade Peter proposed to Cosslett that the group needed to also embrace the ideas of computer-based digital image processing (of electron micrographs) and consider purchasing a mini-computer to enable this. Cosslett suggested Peter apply for funds, which he duly did; the proposal was successful and a PDP-8 was acquired. The PDP-8 computer had 20 kilobytes of memory – tiny by today’s standards – and was about as large as a family fridge! Using this computer, Owen Saxton, who joined the Cosslett group in 1970, together with Ralph Gerchberg, devised the Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm to solve the ‘phase problem’ by using an image and diffraction pattern from the same specimen area; this remarkably successful approach has now spread across many scientific fields. By 1974 the Physics Department in Cambridge was due to move out of town to a new building, the ‘New Cavendish’, in west Cambridge. Also, Cosslett was due to retire in 1975 and so there was a great deal of uncertainty as to how the Electron Microscope group would evolve. At that time, Peter received a letter from Bernard Jouffrey inviting him to join the CNRS Laboratory of Electron Optics (now CEMES) and set up a new research area in image processing. Toulouse was the home of the world’s first high voltage electron microscope and remains an important centre for electron microscopy development to this day. Peter took up the invitation, his application to the CNRS was successful, and he left Cambridge for Toulouse in 1975. He remained at the Toulouse Laboratory, becoming Director in 1987, until his retirement in 2002, when he became Emeritus Director of Research. Throughout his career, Peter was a prolific writer of articles, books and reviews. His first book, on ‘Quadrupole Optics’ was published in 1966, with many others published over the next 50 years or so. Peter’s collaboration with John Spence led to the books ‘Science of Microscopy’ and ‘Springer Handbook of Microscopy’. In the 1980s Peter began work on his seminal multi-volume book, with Erwin Kasper, ‘Principles of Electron Optics’, published first in 1989 with a second edition in 2017, the book’s name paying homage to Wolf’s ‘Principles of Optics’, a book which Peter thought to be one of the very best. He has written extensively on the history of electron microscopy and electron optics, including the history and development of aberration-corrected microscopes. In addition to his own research papers Peter would regularly publish wonderful ‘round-ups’ of key papers from the microscopy world, and key talks that had been given at major microscopy conferences. These were published in the journal Ultramicroscopy
Kristóf Kovács (°1948 – † 23.06.2023)
Kristóf Kovács graduated as a chemical engineer in 1972 from the University of Chemical Industry in Veszprém and was employed by the University of Pannonia. In 1974 he received his doctorate, in 1994 his PhD in chemistry, and in 1995 he was appointed associate professor at the University. He later became Director of the Institute of Materials Engineering. After his retirement he continued to be actively involved in teaching and research and development.He was an internationally renowned expert in imaging techniques (microscopy, electron microscopy, computed tomography, computer image processing), with particular expertise in the correlation between the structure and properties of technical ceramics, the utilisation of glass and electronic waste, and the development of functional material systems for alternative energy sources. In addition to his mother tongue, he also spoke English, Russian and German. He was a member of the Veszprém County Chamber of Engineers, the Hungarian Society for Microscopy, the European Microscopy Society and the Society for Materials Science. Throughout his career, he worked continuously – for many years as Head of External Relations of the University – to strengthen the links between the University and its city, Veszprém and the region, with particular emphasis on the promotion of the scientific results of the University, the exploitation of scientific results and the promotion of the engineering profession. His city honoured him this spring the Pro Urbe medal of Veszprém. We, the members of the Hungarian Microscopy Society (HSM), remember him as an outstanding member of our society. Kristóf succeeded Professor Pál Röhlich as President of the then Hungarian Electron Microscopy Society between 1994 and 2002. Besides to being the organizer of the annual national conferences in Balatonalmádi, he was one of the initiators of the Multinational Congress on Microscopy (MCM), a biennial conference series that brings together nine countries from 2015 and promotes collaborations. He was also the chairman of the fourth MCM event, held in Veszprém in 1999. This alone should be enough for us, the members of the HSM, to remember him with respect and appreciation, even if we did not mention his professional recognition, the fact that he was one of the favourite lecturers at the University of Pannonia, his excellent popular scientific lectures, and that his company (SPI) sponsored even this year’s our conference. Most of these facts will be eventually forgotten in time, but we will remember the always energetic, active, helpful, warm-hearted friend who loved us – and we loved him.
In memory of Arvid B. Maunsbach (°1937 – † 14.05.2023)
Arvid Bernhard Maunsbach, born May 9, 1937, passed away Sunday evening May 14, 2023, in Århus, Jylland, at the age of 86. We wish to extend our sincere condolences to Arvid’s wife, Kaarina Pihakaski-Maunsbach, his children and grandchildren. Arvid Maunsbach was honorary member of the Nordic Microscopy Society (SCANDEM). On behalf of SCANDEM Board, I have the honour of presenting here a brief summary of Arvid Maunsbach’s life-long contribution to microscopical sciences and to the Nordic Microscopy Society. Arvid Maunsbach began his medical study in 1956 at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. During the first three years of study, he had a unique opportunity to visit University of California at Los Angelis as a research associate, to train on electron microscopy methods in ultrastructural studies. At the time electron microscopy was still a very new but fast-growing methodology. Arvid Maunsbach returned later to the University of California to work at the laboratory of Professor Fritiof Sjöstrand, whom he had known at Karolinska before Sjöstrand moved to California. In 1966, Arvid Maunsbach defended his doctoral thesis at Karolinska, including eight published papers based on ultrastructural studies he had performed in Sjöstrand laboratory. One of the articles in his thesis was re-published over 30 years later, 1997, in the Journal of American Society of Nephrology (8, 323-351), with the comment that his study had in a fundamental way increased the understanding of the kidney structure and function. Only 32 years old, in 1970, Arvid Maunsbach was appointed professor of anatomy at Aarhus University, Denmark, but in 1971 he was also affiliated to Yale University, USA. At Aarhus, he successfully continued his research. Together with Professor Peter Leth-Jørgensen, he received the Novo Nordisk Prize 1991, in recognition of their pioneering work on the fundamental correlation between the structure and function of the kidney. During his professorship at Aarhus, he also attended administrative work, as prorector (1977-80) and dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences (1992-99). He retired in 2007. Arvid Maunsbach was among the leading members of SCANDEM. Just a few months before he passed away, he gave the society the original hand-typed minutes of the founding meeting (Protokoll vid sammanträde den 16 oktober 1948) at Manne Siegbahnlaboratoriet (Nobelinstitutet för Fysik) in Stockholm, signed by Docent Fritiof S. Sjöstrand, appointed Secretary. The meeting was chaired by Docent K. Siegbahn and was attended by professors, physicists and engineers from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, with the purpose to establish Scandinavian collaboration on electron microscopy. Kai Manne Börje Siegbahn (1918 – 2007) was a Swedish physicist who was awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics, for his contribution to the development of high-resolution electron spectroscopy. Fritiof Sjöstrand (1912 – 2011), one of the founders of SCANDEM, was a pioneer in developing electron microscopy methods and especially ultrathin sectioning. As Arvid Maunsbach got to know him already during his studies in Stockholm and later at Sjöstrand laboratory in California, he had a unique insight into the history of electron microscopy as well as about SCANDEM. Arvid Maunsbach became involved in the society early during his career, and later served both as President (1977-80) and Treasurer of the society. Many colleagues remember Arvid delivering SCANDEM travel grants in cash(!) at the annual conferences, as well as his friendly way of supporting and encouraging young researchers. In 1996 Arvid Maunsbach wrote, together with Björn Afzelius, the paper entitled ‘The Development of Electron Microscopy in Scandinavia’ including a brief history of the SCANDEM society (Advances in Imaging and Electron Physics 96, 301-321). Today SCANDEM includes all the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland), but has also members from other countries. The by-line “Scandinavian Society for Electron Microscopy” was in 2002 changed to “Nordic Microscopy Society”. Kesara Anamthawat-Jónsson, SCANDEM President (2014-2024)
Prof. John Spence (°1947 – † 28.06.2021)
Dear Members, We deeply regret to announce the death of Professor John Spence on Monday June 28, in Boston. John C. H. Spence was a Regents’ Professor of Physics at Arizona State University (ASU) with a joint appointment at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He completed a PhD in Physics at Melbourne University in Australia, followed by postdoctoral work in Materials Science at Oxford University, UK. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, of the Institute of Physics, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of Churchill College Cambridge, UK. He was co-editor of Acta Crystallographica and served on the editorial board of Reports on Progress in Physics. He has served on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Molecular Foundry and the Advanced Light Source at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the DOE’s BESAC committee. For his microscopy achievements, Spence received the Distinguished Scientist Award of the Microscopy Society of America in 2006, the Buerger Award of the American Crystallographic Society in 2012, the J.M. Cowley Medal of the International Federation of Societies of Microscopy in 2014, the Burton Medal of MSA and a Humboldt Senior Scientist Award. Spence was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 2015. In 2017 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society (HonFRMS) for his contributions to microscopy. Spence is a (corresponding) Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and the author of the book “Lightspeed” (OUP 2019) on the history of attempts to measure the speed of light leading to Einstein’s theories. This year he was awarded the Gregori Aminoff Prize. From the European Microscopy Society, we offer our condolences to the family and close colleagues
Dr. Aldo Armigliato (°1940 – † 10.11.2018)
Aldo Armigliato, one of the leading Italian electron microscopists, died on 10th November 2018. Aldo was born in Naples in 1940. In 1951, he moved to Padua with his family, where he continued his studies. In 1965, he took his degree in physics at the University of Padua with a thesis in nuclear physics. After graduating, he was involved in nuclear spectroscopy research, both at the University and at the Van der Graaf accelerator in Legnaro (Padua). In 1967, he was hired by the Vetrocoke in Portomarghera (Venice) a firm of the Montedison Group where he was head of structural characterization of vitreous materials and, later on, of polymeric fibres. In 1969, he was employed by the “Laboratorio di Chimica e Tecnologia dei Materiali e dei Componenti per l’Elettronica”, LAMEL Institute of the National Research Council (CNR) in Bologna. At the LAMEL Institute (recently the IMM Institute) he spent all the rest of his working life with enthusiasm and curiosity, and with the ability to pass on to students and collaborators his love for scientific research. He started his work at the LAMEL Institute by setting up, with other colleagues, one of the first electron microscopy laboratories in Italy, built around a recently bought transmission electron microscope (TEM), a Siemens Elmiskop 101. In the following years, this Laboratory was to become the main centre in Italy for the application of electron microscopy techniques in microelectronics, promoting the dissemination of these techniques and responsible for training many students and researchers in the latest developments in TEM and TEM sample preparation. Aldo was here a key player, always eager to test the latest electron microscopy innovation and capable of achieving significant and original developments of these techniques and methods. It is also thanks to his pioneering work over the last 40 years, that, in Italy, Weak Beam Dark Field (WBDF), High Resolution Electron Microscopy (HREM), Convergent Beam Electron Diffraction (CBED), Monte Carlo methods for X-ray Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), Nanodiffraction and new Focused Ion Beam (FIB)-based methods for the preparation of TEM standards for X-ray microanalysis were introduced and found applications in the characterization of materials. Underpinning this long lasting activity were collaborations with colleagues working in Research Institutions and Companies all over Europe that led Aldo to coordinate at first a European Twinning Project in 1986-1988 and later on, an RTD European Project (STREAM) in 2000-2002. He was also an active member of the boards of the Società Italiana di Microscopia Elettronica (SIME) and of the European Microscopy Society (EMS). In 1995, he became President of the European Microbeam Analysis Society (EMAS) and maintained this charge until 2001 afterwards being nominated honorary member of the Society. Among the main results of his research activity, there are some fundamental contributions to the study of the impurities behaviour in diffused and implanted Si, the setting up of new methods for the strain determination in silicon microstructures and the proposal of original methods for the quantitative analysis of the sample composition by EDS X-ray microanalysis. He contributed to the edition of several electron microscopy related books and in particular he was co-editor with Prof. U. Valdrè of an important book for the Italian electron microscopist community entitled: “Microscopia elettronica a scansione e microanalisi”. Aldo was a keen scientist and a brilliant microscopist. For his kindness, his open minded attitude and his intelligent humour, to most of those who knew him he was also a friend. In the last twenty years of his life he had to fight a severe illness. He made this in an exemplary way, with a great and tenacious love for life. He leaves a widow, Paola, a son, Alberto and two grandchildren, Silvia and Giacomo. Andrea Parisini, Roberto Balboni, Stefano Frabboni, Vittorio Morandi, Marco Vittori Antisari
Dr. V. C. Barber († August 2017 )
[en cours]
Dr. Ir. Jany Thibault-Pénisson (° 1947 – † 27.10.2011)
On Thursday the 27th of October 2011, we were deeply saddened to learn of the passing away of Jany Thibault. She was a renowned and deeply respected figure, recognized nationally and internationally in electron microscopy and in particular in the field of high-resolution imaging and plasticity. Jany Thibault (- Desseaux then – Pénisson) was born in 1947. She spent her youth in Paris and then joined Grenoble, where she graduated as an ingénieur at the Institut National Polytechnique of Grenoble. She began her scientific career at the CEA-Grenoble in 1974, conducting her thesis in the Department of Solid State Physics under the direction of Alain Bourret. She was then associated with the early development of high-resolution electron microscopy and in 1975 published her first results at high accelerating voltages. She then turned to the observation at lower voltages of atomic columns in semiconductor materials and in particular germanium. It is for this material that she recorded the first images of the cores of dislocations at the atomic scale. She revealed the dissociation of dislocations in these materials and defended her PhD in 1977 by presenting these world firsts. She received the Prix Alain Brelot of the French Physical Society in 1979 for her thesis. She was recruited by the CNRS in 1978 and continued to work at the CEA-Grenoble in the Department of Fundamental Research. She then published the first comparison of the experimentally observed atomic scale displacements around an edge dislocation with elasticity theory calculations. In 1980, she showed for the first time that the method of separation of 60° dislocations in germanium and silicon was by glide. As a natural continuation, she then focused on the atomic structure of grain boundaries in these semiconductors, and later in metals, and showed that these structures are often perfectly ordered. She was able to describe the different models consistent with the experimental high-resolution images. In 1983, she won the bronze medal of the CNRS. In 1987, with two of her PhD students, Mohamed El Kajbaji and Jean-Luc Putaux, she began the study of interaction of dislocations with grain boundaries, a subject that would interest her for the rest of her life. She assumed the direction of electron microscopy at the CEA-DRFMC and was appointed Director of Research at the CNRS. Fascinated by the microscope that can “see” atoms, always curious to understand how atoms arrange themselves next to one another, how they come together and organize themselves in defects, she then widens her scope to other materials, such as metals and problems of relaxation in metallic multilayers systems (thesis of P. Bayle-Guillemaud) and oxides. She also participated to the understanding of early growth patterns of single-wall carbon nanotubes (CNT) by analyzing the interface between the catalyst and the CNT. In 1996, she introduced to her laboratory the emerging technique of energy filtering to perform chemical analysis at the sub-nanometre scale. She worked on many projects in nanomaterials, where her knowledge of the structure of defects and interfaces was much appreciated. In 2004, she decided to join the University Paul Cézanne in Marseille to mount a major project for aberration-corrected high-resolution microscopy as part of the CIM-PACA and create the local network of quantitative microscopy MET-PACA. Throughout her career, Jany Thibault was an ambassador of high-resolution microscopy in both the national community and abroad. She was a regular invited speaker in major conferences of electron microscopy and participated during all these years to the training of young microscopists in many national and international schools in microscopy and materials. She also became involved in the drafting of monographs on grain boundaries in semiconductors, and later in other materials. Jany Thibault was a brilliant physicist and microscopist and is already deeply missed by our whole community. She was also a woman of character that anyone who had the privilege of meeting cannot forget. Her knowledge, both scientific and cultural, impressed and was always combined with a real humanity and joie de vivre. She was also an artist, finding in painting and drawing a very personal way to express the world. We express our sincerest sympathy to her husband Jean-Michel Pénisson, co-worker and companion for life. Let him know that the reactions to the announcement of her departure have all reflected a deep sadness. Illness removed her too soon; we keep a fond memory of an exceptional woman. Alain BourretPascale Bayle-Guillemaud