Group Updates

September 2023

Yifan, Mai and Peter presented papers at the International Microscopy Congress (IMC) 2023 Conference held in Busan, South Korea from September 10-15, 2023.

Yifan presenting his work on “Exploring the Effect of Diffraction Conditions on Off-Axis Phonon EELS
Mai presenting her work on “In situ study of surface dynamics on ceria nanoparticles
Peter presenting on “Studying Charge Redistribution in Photocatalytic Nanoparticles using In Situ Light Illumination Coupled with Electron Holography
Yifan presenting his poster titled “In situ engineering and characterization of photonic modes in dielectric nanocubes
Mai presenting her poster titled “Seeing cation dopants in Gd-doped ceria using STEM-EELS

July 2023

The group presented papers at the Microscopy and Microanalysis (M&M) 2023 Conference held in Minneapolis, Minnesota from July 23-27, 2023.

Yifan won the M&M Student Scholar Award at M&M 2023. Congratulations Yifan!!!
Blake with Eric Hoglund, Piyush, Nester Zaluzec, Peter Ercius and others in the boat cruise on Mississippi river
Past, Present, and Future of MSA Student Council
Blake with Piyush, Jordan Hachtel and others in a boat cruise on Mississippi river
The group participated at the PMCx60

August 2022

Tara defended her dissertation titled “Computational Design of Interfacial Properties for Materials Discovery” on August 10th, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Tara Boland!

Tara will continue to pursue her career in academia and will join a Post-Doc position at DTU!! Crozier Group wishes Tara good luck in her future pursuits!

The group presented papers at the Microscopy and Microanalysis (M&M) 2022 Conference held in Portland, Oregon from July 31-August 4, 2022.

Matan presented his work at the PMCx62 meeting on Sunday. Piyush (Left), Matan, Mai and Peter (Right)

July 2022

Sampad Barik and Blake Dorame have joined the Crozier Research Group. Welcome to the group Sampad and Blake!!

May 2022

Piyush received the Best Poster Award at Symposium SF10 for his work on “Atomic‐level Variations of Strain-fields at Surfaces and Step-edges on CeO2 Nanoparticle under Different Redox Conditions” at Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring 2022 Conference. Congrats Piyush!!

The group presented papers at the Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring 2022 Conference held in Honolulu, Hawai’i from May 8- 13, 2022.

Piyush presenting his poster at MRS!
Tara and Peter along with their posters at MRS!
Peter, Piyush and Kartik enjoying at Hawai’i
Group Picture taken at the conference.

April 2022

Advait secured a Second Place in the poster presentation for his work on “Event Detection of Fluxional Catalytic Nanoparticles from Large In Situ TEM Datasets” at Arizona Imaging and Microanalysis Society (AIMS) 2022 Conference. Congrats Advait!!

October 2021

Han-Jyun Hou has joined the group. Welcome to the group Han-Jyun!

September 2021

Advait Gilankar and Rishav Baranwal have joined the group as a Graduate Students. Welcome to the group Advait and Rishav!!

August 2021

Piyush and Ramon won the M&M Student Scholars Award and M&M Postdoctoral Scholars Award at the M&M 2021 conference, respectively. Congratulations to both of you!!!

Mai won the MSA Student Poster Award for her work on “In Situ TEM Study of Oxygen Surface Exchange on Ceria, Gd-doped Ceria, and Pr-doped Ceria” at the M&M 2021 Conference. Congratulations Mai!!!

The group presented papers at the Virtual Microscopy and Microanalysis Conference 2021. Here are the title slides from everyone:

June 2021

Josh defended his dissertation titled “Atomic-resolution In Situ and Operando Visualization of Oxygen Transfer Reactions over Pt/CeO2 Catalysts” on June 24th, 2020. Congrats, Dr. Joshua Vincent!!

May 2021

Rachel Gorelik has joined the group as a Graduate Student. She will be working on Studying defect configurations in doped Ceria. Welcome to the group Rachel!!

August 2020

Peter became the President of the Microscopy Society of America. He has previously served the council for 6 years as the Treasurer. Congratulations Peter!!

July 2020

Yifan Wang has joined the group as a Graduate Student. He will be working on Simulation of EELS data. Welcome Yifan to the group!!

The group celebrated Kartik’s graduation with a day trip to the Mogollon Rim

June 2020

Kartik defended his dissertation on June 30th, 2020. He will join Oak Ridge National Laboratory now as a post-doctoral fellow. Congrats, Dr. Kartik Venkatraman!

May 2020

Congratulations Tara! She successfully passed her comprehensive exam on May 5th and now is a Ph.D. candidate.

April 2020

Congratulations Josh! He has received invitation for an oral presentation on his research at the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2020 meeting.

He also won the “Travel Awards” to the 17th International Congress on Catalysis.

February 2020

January 2020

Peter, Kartik, and Josh helped teach during ASU’s Winter School on High Resolution Electron Microscopy which took place the week of January 6th.

December 2019

Diane and Peter attended the Fulton Schools of Engineering convocation where the doctoral students are officially conferred with their degree and hooded. Congrats, Dr. Haiber!

November 2019

Barnaby has finished his post-doc and accepted a position with Direct Electron, a company that makes direct electron detectors for electron microscopy applications. Congratulations, Barnaby!

Diane defended her dissertation on November 4th, 2019. Afterwards, the group celebrated by pouring champagne. Congrats, Dr. Haiber!

October 2019

An article highlighting the recent accomplishments of the Crozier research group, namely the acquisition of an MRI grant for a direct electron detector and two NSF grants, has been featured on ASU Now. Click the image to read more!

September 2019

Diane talked about STEM, electron microscopes, and getting a PhD in Materials Science to students in Miss. Blue’s class at Pensar Academy in Phoenix AZ!
Josh visited the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland to perform research with the environmental TEM there!

August 2019

Josh successfully passed his comprehensive exam and is now a Ph.D. Candidate. Congratulations, Josh!
Many of the current and past students of the Crozier group reunited on the Willamette dinner cruise during the Microscopy & Microanalysis conference week. From left: Ethan, Josh, Ben, Kartik, Peter, Will, Qianlang, Piyush, Diane.
Josh presenting some of his research at the Microscopy & Microanalysis Pre-Meeting Congress for students, postdocs, and early-career professionals. Josh won the Best Poster award at the Pre-Meeting Congress. Josh also won two travel awards sponsored by the ASU Graduate College to support his travel to the conference. Congratulations, Josh!
Diane presenting her work at the Microscopy & Microanalysis Pre-Meeting Congress. She also presented this poster during the main meeting and was awarded the 1st Place Poster Prize in Physical Sciences for Thursday – congrats Diane!
Diane accepting an award from the Microscopy Society of America President (Paul Kotula, Sandia National Labs) at the Thursday poster session during M&M!
Barnaby’s prior work from his Ph.D. at Cornell was featured in the Exhibit hall!!
Piyush attended his first M&M conference and presented his work on quantifying structural transformations at the atomic scale from in-situ TEM images.
Piyush and Ethan got a picture with Nobel Laureate Joachim Frank!

June 2019

Josh and Barnaby attended the North American Catalysis Society meeting in Chicago, IL. They both presented their own papers as well as contributions from Diane and Peter.

May 2019

Barnaby, Diane, and Kartik volunteered as Grand Awards Judges as the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair which was held this year in Phoenix, AZ.

January 2019

Peter, Barnaby, Ethan, Josh, and Diane all helped teach during ASU’s Winter School on High Resolution Electron Microscopy which took place the week of January 7th.


November 2018

Diane hosts the final Excelling Beyond the Lab seminar for the Fall 2018 semester. As Chair of Professional Development for ASU’s MSE Graduate Student Leadership Circle, she organized and hosted this bi-weekly seminar featuring speakers from academia, national labs, industry, and the ASU grad student body.

Kartik successfully passed his comprehensive exam and is now a Ph.D. candidate!


September 2018

Ethan, Kartik, Josh, Barnaby, and Peter attended and presented papers at the 19th International Microscopy Congress in Sydney, Australia. Josh was recognized as a Young Scientist by the International Federation of Societies for Microscopy (IFSM).

Ethan, Tara, and Diane help to host an MSE graduate student mixer on behalf of ASU’s MSE Graduate Student Leadership Circle. All three of them are co-founding members of the group striving to create a culture of community within the MSE grad student community.


August 2018

The Crozier group attended Microscopy & Microanalysis in Baltimore, Maryland. Ethan, Kartik, Barnaby, Josh, Brittany, Tara, Diane, and Peter all presented papers on their research. Josh and Ethan organized and chaired the Pre-Meeting Congress on in situ and operando microscopy. Josh received a Student Scholar award from the Microscopy Society of America.


July 2018

Diane successfully passed her comprehensive exam and is now a Ph.D. candidate!


April 2018

Prof. Peter Crozier was awarded the Ford Faculty Fellowship for his contributions to SEMTE. Congratulations!

The Crozier group attended the MRS 2018 Spring Meeting in Phoenix, AZ. In total, our group presented 16 papers. Above are some snapshots of our group taken throughout the week.


March 2018

Tara, Josh, Ethan, and Diane attended TMS 2018 in Phoenix, AZ. Tara and Josh presented posters while Ethan and Diane gave talks in the ‘Energy and Environment’ symposium. Above are pictures of Diane and Ethan before their talks.


November 2017

Tu-Uyen presented her work on synthesis and characterization of mixed metal oxide nanoparticles at the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative (FURI) symposium. (update: and won an Outstanding FURI Poster Award!). 


August 2017

The Crozier group contributed several papers to the Microscopy & Microanalysis conference held in St. Louis, MO during August 4-10. Diane and Ethan gave contributed talks in the “Imaging and Spectroscopy of Beam Sensitive Materials” and “Advanced Characterization of Energy-Related Materials” symposia, respectfully. Tara, Kartik, Josh, and Diane all presented posters highlighting their recent research representing a wide range of symposia. Both Kartik and Josh received best poster awards in Physical Sciences for their awesome work! Peter gave invited talks and distributed awards during the Plenary session. Ethan was also involved with organizing the inaugural M&M Pre-Meeting Congress for graduate students, postdocs, and early-career professionals. *(Thank you Ian MacLaren for several of these photos.)


June 2017

Ethan and Diane presented posters at the North American Catalysis Society meeting (NAM 25) in Denver, CO.


April 2017

The Crozier group attended the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting here in Phoenix, AZ. Above are photos Diane presenting her recent research during one of the poster sessions. Ethan and Qianlang gave talks/posters as well.

Shortly after the meeting, the group went out for dinner at a local pub. Qianlang and Ethan enjoying cocktails and beer.


March 2017

Congrats to Kartik and Diane! They were each granted M&M Student Scholar Awards for the upcoming Microscopy & Microanalysis conference, which provides substantial financial support and meeting registration.

Congratulations Ethan! He recently won his third poster prize at the Arizona Imaging and Microanalysis Society Conference and was also granted the prestigious Kokes Award from the North American Catalysis Society.


October 2016

peralta trail group

The Crozier group and friends went to the Superstition Mountains to hike Peralta Trail. The rock formation behind us is Weavers Needle.

Will successfully defended his dissertation research titled: Correlating nanoscale grain boundary composition with electrical conductivity in ceria. Congratulations, Dr. Bowman! He now holds a postdoctoral research position at MIT.


September 2016

Group photos for the new school year! The first few attempts were in the sun but we finally managed to take some in the shade.


July 2016

Qianlang, Will, Ethan, Kartik, Diane and Peter attended Microscopy & Microanalysis in Columbus, Ohio. All presented papers in the form of talks and/or posters and Ethan won best poster for the second year in a row! Peter presented awards during the Monday morning plenary session.

Steven attended and presented a poster at Carbon 2016 in State College, Pennsylvania. He presented his research on ultracapcitor degradation in collaboration with Maxwell Technologies.


May 2016

Diane attended Science Outside the Lab: The Future of Nanotechnology, a week-long workshop in Washington DC exploring the intersection of science and policy with an emphasis on nanotech.


April 2016

The Materials Research Society (MRS) annual spring meeting was held in Phoenix, AZ this year for the first time. Peter, Ben, and Qianlang gave talks about their research. Ethan and Qianlang also presented posters.


March 2016

Congratulations to the new Dr. Ben Miller!!  He just completed his Ph.D. so Peter hosted a BBQ at his house. Ben will now work for Gatan, Inc. as an in situ product specialist and will continue to work closely with ASU.


February 2016

Congratulations to the new Dr. Liuxian Zhang! He completed his Ph.D. so he treated the group to a celebratory dinner!

Will gave a seminar entitled “Correlative Electron Microscopy across Length Scales to Elucidate Grain Boundary Transport in Non-Stoichiometric Oxides” at the Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy (CIME) at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland.


Winter Break 2015

With finals over, the group went to the Phoenix Rock Gym for an adrenaline rush.


November 2015

Many of the group members went to the First Friday event in downtown Phoenix and toured the Phoenix Art Museum.


August 2015

Qianlang, Ethan, Ben, Nolan, Steven, Will and Peter attended the Microscopy and Microanalysis Meeting in Portland, Oregon in August.  They all presented papers, and Ethan won a poster award. Peter presented the awards section of the Monday morning plenary session.

Will and Peter followed the M&M meeting by attending the Nion Co. Open House in Seattle, WA. Will also attended the week-long Nion Swift scripting workshop.

Will has been awarded the NSF GRFP Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide travel award to study for eight months at  ETH Zurich. He will work in the Department of Materials’ Electrochemical Materials Group under Prof. Jennifer Rupp.


June 2015

Ben, Qianlang and Peter presented papers at the North American Catalysis Society in Pittsburgh, PA. Qianlang won the Graduate College Scholarship to attend the meeting.  Congratulations to Qianlang.

Will attended the Solid State Ionics meeting in Keystone, Colorado to present several papers on grain boundary electrical properties and conductivity.


May 2015

Congratulations to Chelsey (BSE), Cruz (BSE), Kimberly (BSE), Marion (BSE) and Dexuan (MS) for graduating from ASU Materials Science and Engineering!


April 2015

Qianlang, Will and Peter traveled to San Francisco, California for the Spring Meeting of the Materials Research Society where they each gave talks and presented a poster.

The group went hiking in Sedona, AZ and had a picnic at Oak Creek Canyon.


September 2014

Ben, Qianlang, Will and Peter traveled to Prague, Czech Republic to participate in the quadrennial International Microscopy Congress. Each presented a talk and poster throughout the action-packed week. Plenty of hard work and fun made this an intellectually rewarding meeting, and a truly memorable experience. Congratulations to Ben, Qianlang and Will for winning dual travel awards from the Microscopy Society of America and the International Microscopy Congress!


August 2014

Ben, Liuxian, Qianlang, Will and Peter traveled to the annual Microscopy and Microanalysis meeting in Hartford, CT. The group presented numerous posters and presentations. Congratulations to Ben for winning the poster prize for Best Physical Science Poster, and to Will for winning the Presidential Scholar Student Award! See you next year for M&M 2015 in Portland, OR!


July 2014

Will traveled to South Hadley, Mass. to participate in the Solid State Studies in Cermics Gordon Research Conference at Mount Holyoke College.  Will presented a poster and interacted with many ceramic researchers from around the world.


April 2014

Peter, Liuxian and Will traveled to San Francisco to present at the Materials Research Society’s spring meeting. The meeting was a lot of fun and work–the group worked late into the nights perfecting slides. The trip was not all work, however, the meeting closed with a celebratory ferry journey.

We are delighted to announce that Kimberly and Will have both received awards.  Kimberly has been selected to participate in the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative (FURI) to perform research with us this summer and fall.  Will is a winner of a Presidential Student Award from the Microscopy Society of America for one of the papers he has submitted for the conference in August.

Members of the group made the most of a day of great weather by visiting the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden’s Chihuly in the Garden exhibit. The garden was in bloom and the food was great!


January 2014

Will’s participation in a recent outreach event with the ASU chapter of the Electrochemical Society was highlighted in Interface, the society’s periodical. The ECS chapter recently visited the Phoenix Ironmen Network to conduct an interactive workshop focused on renewable and electrochemical energy. The full story is available here. ASU ECS Officers (from left to right) pictured are William Bowman, Community Outreach Coordinator; Iolanda Klein, Secretary; Tylan Watkins, Recruitment Coordinator; and Telpriore “Greg” Tucker, President.


December 2013

Cruz has been selected to participate in the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative (FURI) for the Spring of 2014. he will work with Will on fabrication and characterization of oxygen ion-conducting ceramics.


October 2013

The group is pleased to announce the addition of materials science and engineering undergraduate research assistant Cruz Hernandez. Cruz will work with Will on the characterization of ceria-based oxygen ion conductors.


August 2013

Zahra is awarded the Fall 2013 ASU/NASA Space Grant Internship to continue her work on simulations of electron energy loss spectra of oxides for solid oxide fuel cells and photocatalysts.

Peter, Ben, Liuxian, Qianlang, Jiangtao and Will travel to Indianapolis, Indiana to present papers at the Microscopy Society of America’s 2013 Microscopy and Microanalysis meeting.


July 2013


Qianlang and Liuxian win the ASU Graduate and Professional Student Association travel grant for travel to the Microscopy Society of America’s 2013 Microscopy & Microanalysis Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana.


May 2013

Peter chaired the 2013 International Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy Meeting on Enhanced Data Generated by Electrons (EDGE) in Sainte- Maxime, France. His duties also included presenting papers on the ongoing works of Jiangtao and Ben.


April 2013

Ben and Liuxian have won the North American Catalysis Society Kokes Award. They will both travel to Louisville, KT to present papers and receive their awards.


Trevor has been selected to participate in the Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative (FURI) for the Summer of 2013 to work on operando TEM of catalysts.


March 2013

Qianlang wins Best Student Poster Award at the 2013 meeting of the Arizona Imaging and Microanalysis Society in Tuscon, AZ.

The ASU Physics Department awards Zahra the Molecular Imaging Corporation scholarship for the 2013-2014 academic year.

Spring in Phoenix means perfect weather. The Group took full advantage by having a picnic and hiking at Fish Creek Canyon, in the Superstition Mountains just east of the city.