M. Isaacson has published over 130 articles and book chapters dealing with field emission, scanning and scanning transmission electron microscopy (instrumentation and development), electron energy loss spectroscopy, image processing, electron optics, electron beam modification of materials, atomic resolution microscopy, nanolithography and fabrication, mesoscopic physics, near field optical imaging and nanodevices for biology and medicine. He is currently finishing a text entitled “Nano/Microcharacterization: The Physics and Methodology of Materials Characterization from Volumes Less than 1μm3”. In addition, he has presented over 240 invited lectures worldwide. Awards include a Hertz Foundation Fellowship, a Sloan Foundation Faculty Fellowship, the Burton Medal from the Electron Microscopy Society of America (for pioneering work in the development of electron energy loss spectroscopy within the electron microscope), an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Scientist Research Award (for instrument innovation leading to chemical characterization at the nanometer scale within the electron microscope), and the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics (for fundamental research in the development of near-field optical imaging). He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his contributions to the field of atomic resolution imaging (including producing the first motion pictures of individual atoms diffusing on a surface) and served a 3 year term as Physical Science Director of the Electron Microscopy Society of America.
In 1993, Professor Isaacson was elected President of the Microscopy Society of America, In 1997, he was elected to the Executive Board of the Engineering Research Council (ERC) of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) and in 2001 he was elected as Secretary/Treasurer of the ERC. He has also served on the editorial boards of the Reviews of Scientific Instruments, the Journal de Microscopie et de Spectroscopie Electronique, Nanostructured Materials, Microscopy and Microanalysis, Ultramicroscopy, Scanning and The Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology,B. Presently, he is on the external advisory committees of the NIH National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research at the University of California, San Diego and the NIH Laboratory for 3D Fine Structure at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is also currently a member of the scientific advisory board of Trellis Biosciences. Prof. Isaacson has several patents and has been a consultant in microscopy, electron optical instrumentation and nanotechnology to several industrial and government organizations. He was Professor in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University from 1988-2002, a Visiting Professor in the Department of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco from 1997-1998 and director of the Keck Foundation Program in Nanobiotechnology at Cornell. Prof. Isaacson has a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is presently The Narinder Kapany Professor of Optoelectronics and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Affairs in the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz.