Brent Nannenga awarded Burton Medal

Brent Nannenga, an assistant professor of chemical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, has been awarded the Burton Medal Biological by the Microscopy Society of America for his work on the development of microcrystal electron diffraction also known as MicroED.

“This award means a lot to me because the recognition helps to show that the methods I’ve been working on so far in my career have made an impact within our field,” says Nannenga. “It adds extra motivation to keep pushing new developments and techniques.”

Nannenga’s work in MicroED started as his postdoctoral project at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Virginia. His current research focuses on the continued development of MicroED and the application of cryo-EM toward understanding and engineering protein structure and function.

According to the Microscopy Society of America, the Burton Medal has been awarded annually to an individual under the age of 40 since 1975 and honors the distinguished contributions to the field of microscopy and microanalysis. Nannenga was also recently awarded a 2020 Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation.

“I am incredibly grateful that I have been selected to receive this award,” says Nannenga. “Very distinguished researchers in electron microscopy are past award winners, including John Spence here at ASU, and feel very honored to have my name included in the list of Burton Medal winners.”