Posted on Mar 10, 2009

When scientists and artists get together, good things can happen. Just ask anyone who attended the “Scanning Electron Microscopy Show” Tuesday afternoon in Olin Atrium.

Students discuss the use of traditional photography and the scanning electron microscope with Martin Benjamin, right, a professor of visual arts. Students displayed their work with the microscope and the camera at the “Scanning Electron Microscope Show”

The event was the culmination of collaboration between students in Frontiers of Nanotechnology and students in Photography II. Members of both classes displayed and discussed images they captured using the scanning electron microscope this term. Photography students also displayed pictures they’d taken with traditional cameras, juxtaposing the two types of images on their posters.

In Frontiers of Nanotechnology, co-taught by electrical engineering professor Palma Catravas, biology professor Brian Cohen and chemistry professor Michael Hagerman, students learned to operate the microscope. They did so using materials provided by David Frye of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Union professors Seyffie Maleki, Kathleen LoGiudice and Sam Amanuel. Some materials studied during microscopy labs, which were co-developed with Mark Hooker, also came from Photography II students.

A traditional photograph of a paper bag, taken by Kim Floeser '11, is shown at left. An image of the same bag, taken by the scanning electron microscope, is on the right.

“The samples provided by the photography students presented interesting imaging challenges,” Catravas said of items like phone books and paper bags. “They helped nanotechnology students master different microscopy techniques.”

Photography students also learned to use the microscope themselves.

“It was very interesting, I never see things that close up,”  said Alec Rosen '10, a psychology major in the photography class. “It showed me that there are different perspectives, different ways of looking at things.”

Yohan Dupuis, an electrical engineering student at Union Graduate College, was also fascinated by the images the microscope displays.

Palma Catravas, a professor of electrical engineering, works with a student learning to use the scanning electron microscope.

“As engineers, we usually see how technology works, but this nanotechnology class focused on something different,” he said. “It was like, not learning how a TV works, but learning what’s inside a TV on the molecular level.”

Visual arts professor Martin Benjamin, who taught the photography course, agrees that the microscope introduces students to a whole new realm of knowledge.

“If you’re a visual artist trying to create art, the more input you get on all facets of the world, the better off you are,” he said. “In this case, for instance, you’re seeing things in a way you can’t ever see them with your eyes.”