Biography - John C.H. Spence

Biography | Publications | Curriculum Vitae | Videos | Slides | Articles | Obituary

Regent's Professor John C.H. Spence FRS (Foreign Member) is the Richard Snell Professor of Physics at Arizona State University. He is also the director of science for the NSF BioXFEL Science and Technology Center on the application of X-Ray Free-electron lasers to structural biology. This is a consortium of seven U.S. universities (ASU, Stanford, Millwaukee, Cornell, Rice, SUNY Buffalo, UCSF) devoted to the development and application of hard X-ray lasers to biology for a decade. Spence completed a doctorate in physics at Melbourne University in Australia, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Oxford, UK. He received the Distinguished Scientist Award of the Microscopy Society of America for 2006, the Buerger Award of the American Crystallographic Society in 2012, the J.M. Cowley Medal of the International Federation of Societies of Microscopy for 2014, the Burton Medal of MSA and a Humbolt Senior Scientist award. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, a Foreign (corresponding) member of the Australian Academy of Science, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Microscopy Society of American, of the Royal Microscopy Society, of the Institute of Physics (UK), and an overseas fellow of Churchill College Cambridge, UK. He was co-editor of Acta Cryst (A) for North America (Diffraction Physics, 1990-2000) and is main editor of IUCRJ. He has served on Scientific Advisory Committees at LBNL and was a member of the DOE BESAC Committee for a decade. He was chair of the International Union of Crystallography Commission on Electron Diffraction, a member of the IUCr commission on Charge, Spin and Momentum densities. A Festschrift volume of Ultramicroscopy appeared in July 2011. Spence is the author and co-author of text books on advanced atomic-resolution electron microscopy and on microdiffraction, and of a book on the history of theories of the Aether and the search for an absolute frame of reference in the universe, leading to Einstein's theories. His research interests have included the development of new microscopies and diffraction physics. He teaches condensed matter physics, and is a pilot and musician.