FULLY ONLINE – 4 Half Days
30 June – 3 July 2026
Volume Imaging 2026 Symposium – Program
This year there will be local in person Hub’s to bring our community together and view the Syposium in real time. More details to come!
Day 1 Tuesday 30 June
VOLUME IMAGING with LIGHT
Program Chairs:
Chad Johnson, La Trobe Institute and
Nick Anthony, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
All times are shown in Australian EDT – Sydney Time
12:30 - 13:10 | Keynote Session
(30 min followed by 10 min live Q&A)
12:30 – 13:00
13:00 – 13:10 | Keynote – Live Q&A
13:10 - 13:35 | Technique in focus
(20 min followed by 5 min live Q&A)
13:10 – 13:30
Kazuhide Shaun Okuda
Visualising cellular and signalling dynamics using zebrafish
13:30 – 13:35 | Technique in focus – Live Q&A
13:35 - 14:05 | Vendor Session
(2 x 10 min followed by 10 min live group Q&A)
13:35 – 13:45
‘Visualizing Life in 3D at High Speed with Innovative Light Sheet Microscopy’
Shelly Azadi, Leica Microsystems
13:45 – 13:55
Topic: To be confirmed13:55 – 14:05 | Vendor Session – Live Q&A
Afternoon break (20 mins)
14:25 - 15:47 | Scientific Presentations
(5 x 12 min followed by 10 min live group Q&A)
14:25 – 14:37
“Three-dimensional spatially resolved analysis of the cochlear implant tissue interface using light-sheet fluorescence microscopy”
Ellie Cho, University of Melbourne
14:37 – 14:49
“Super-Resolution Approach in Internalised Extracellular Vesicles and Host Cells using Expansion Microscopy.”
Wing Tung Wong, University of Technology Sydney
14:49 – 15:01
“Live imaging and cell tracking of developing kidneys”
Raeesah Hayatudin, Monash University
“Volumetric imaging to investigate the mechanisms involved in the coral-Symbiodiniaceae symbiosis”
Erin Lausterer, University of Technology Sydney
15:13 – 15:25
“DRP1 and MID49 co-diffusion scans mitochondria for fission”
Cristiana Zollo, The Kids
15:25 – 15:35 | Scientific Presentations – Live Q&A
Afternoon break (10 mins)
15:45 - 16:25 | Problem Solver Session
(40 mins)
“Evidence or artifacts – guiding ethical imaging and analysis”
Cameron Nowell, MIPS
Lachlan Whitehead, WEHI
Genevieve Buckley, Monash
Afternoon break (10 mins)
16:35 - 17:00 | Technique in focus
(20 min followed by 5 min live Q&A)
16:35 – 16:55
Irina Kabakova
Brillouin microscopy for micromechanical characterisation of biomaterials, cells and tissues
16:55 – 17:00 | Technique in focus – Live Q&A
Day 2 Wednesday 1 July
VOLUME IMAGING with ELECTRONS
Program Chairs:
Errin Johnson, University of Sydney and
Boyin Liu, La Trobe University
All times are shown in Australian EDT – Sydney Time
12:30 - 13:10 | Technique in focus
(30 min followed by 10 min live Q&A)
12:30 – 13:00
Kirk Czymmek
Exploring diverse photosynthetic organisms with ambient and cryo-volume electron microscopy
13:00 – 13:10 | Technique in focus – Live Q&A
13:10 - 14:05 | Scientific Presentations
(3 x 15 min followed by 10 min live group Q&A)
“Chikungunya virus remodels membrane contact sites during cellular replication’
Nick Ariotti, The University of Queensland
“Visualising Lipid Droplet Dynamics in the Malaria Parasite by 3D FIB-SEM”
Jiwon Lee, Australian National University
13:40 – 13:55
“3D Ultrastructural Mapping of Mitosis in a Native Epithelial Mini-Organ”
Nickhill Jadav, University of Otago
13:55 – 14:05 | Scientific Presentations – Live Q&A
Afternoon break (25 mins)
14:30 - 14:55 | Technique in focus
(20 min followed by 5 min live Q&A)
14:30 – 14:50
Nicole Schieber
The ROI Challenge: practical solutions for targeting complex specimens in Volume EM
14:50 – 14:55 | Technique in focus – Live Q&A
14:55 - 15:35 | Vendor Session
(3 x 10 min followed by 10 min live group Q&A)
14:55 – 15:05
‘Next-Generation Plasma FIB for High-Resolution Volume Imaging and Cryo-Lamella Preparation’
Xianjun Zhang
15:05 – 15:15
‘Multi-scale Volume Electron Microscopy from Tissue Architecture to Native-State Molecular Ultrastructure’15:15 – 15:25
Topic: To be confirmed
15:25 – 15:35 | Vendor Session – Live Q&A
Afternoon break (15 mins)
15:50 - 16:15 | Technique in focus
(20 min followed by 5 min live Q&A)
15:50 – 16:10
Jemima Burden
Ribbons to research: Building an array tomography pipeline in a core electron microscopy facility
16:10 – 16:15 | Technique in focus – Live Q&A
16:15 - 16:55 | Keynote
(30 min followed by 10 min live Q&A)
16:15 – 16:45
Joergen Kornfeld
Acquisition and analysis of large volume electron microscopy data for connectomics
16:45 – 16:55 | Keynote- Live Q&A
Day 3 Thursday 2 July
VOLUME IMAGING with X-RAYS and NEUTRONS
Program Chairs:
Philipp Lösel, ANU and
Andrew Stevenson, ANSTO
All times are shown in Australian EDT – Sydney Time
12:30 - 12:55 | Problem Solver Session
(20 min followed by 5 min live Q&A)
12:30 – 12:50
Andrew Kingston
Techniques for high-fidelity cone-beam micro-CT
12:50 – 12:55 | Problems Solver Session – Live Q&A
12:55 - 13:20 | Technique in focus
(20 min followed by 5 min live Q&A)
12:55 – 13:15
Floriana Salvemini
Neutron Imaging: Capabilities and Case Studies from ANSTO
13:15 – 13:20 | Technique in focus – Live Q&A
Afternoon break (25 mins)
13:45 - 15:10 | Scientific Presentations
(5 x 15 min followed by 10 min live group Q&A)
13:45 – 14:00
“The 3D anatomy of the pigeon inner ear”
Jeremy Shaw, The University of Western Australia
14:00 – 14:15
“Micro-Computed Tomography (MCT): A BRIGHT new beamline at ANSTO/Australian Synchrotron”
Andrew Stevenson, The University of Western Australia
14:15 – 14:30
“Cross-Modality Consistency Regularisation for Semi-Supervised Learning in Brain Tumour Segmentation”
Jaidyn Johnston, The Australian National University
14:30 – 14:45
“Synthetic Particle Pack Generation for Augmentation and Testing in Geological Tomographic Segmentation“
Bogong Wang, The Australian National University
14:45 – 15:00
“Self-Validated Learning for Particle Separation: A Correctness-Based Self-Training Framework Without Human Labels”
Philipp Loesel, The Australian National University
15:00 – 15:10 | Scientific Presentations – Live Q&A
Afternoon break (10 mins)
15:20 - 16:00 | Keynote
(30 min followed by 10 min live Q&A)
15:20 – 15:50
Elizabeth Duke
High Throughput Tomography (HiTT): X-ray Imaging of Soft Biological Tissues
15:50 – 16:00 | Keynote – Live Q&A
16:00 - 16:25 | Technique in focus
(20 min followed by 5 min live Q&A)
16:00 – 16:20
Thomas van de Kamp
High-throughput synchrotron X-ray microtomography of insects
16:20 – 16:25 | Technique in focus – Live Q&A
Day 4 Friday 3 July
CORRELATIVE IMAGING with VOLUMES
Program Chairs:
Gerry Shami, University of Sydney and
Ben Padman, UWA
Australian EDT – Sydney Time
Presentation
12:30 - 13:00 | Volume Imaging Australia AGM
Volume Imaging Australia (VIA) members are encouraged to attend
13:00 - 13:25 | Problem Solver Session
(20 min followed by 5 min live Q&A)
16:00 – 16:20
Kristina D. Micheva
Array tomography strategies to understand and quantify synapse diversity
13:20 – 13:25 | Problem Solver Session – Live Q&A
13:25 - 13:50 | Vendor Session
(2 x 10 min followed by 5 min live group Q&A)
13:25 – 13:35
Streamlining Cryo-Tomography with Arctis and Krios 5
Alex Rigort
13:35 – 13:45
Topic: To be confirmed
13:45 – 13:50 | Vendor Session – Live Q&A
Afternoon break (20 mins)
14:10 - 15:05 | Scientific Presentations
(3 x 15 min followed by 10 min live group Q&A)
14:10 – 14:25
“Correlative synchrotron-Based Micro-CT, large area SEM and FIB-SEM imaging of biological samples”
Dennis Korneev, Monash University
14:25 – 14:40
Topic to be confirmed
Tony McEnroe, SiriusXT
14:40 – 14:55
“Reviving Formalin Fixed, Paraffin Embedded (FFPE) Tissues for Analytical and Multiscale Correlative Microscopy”
Zenan Chen, The University of Sydney
14:55 – 15:05 | Scientific Presentations – Live Q&A
15:05 - 15:45 | Keynote
(30 min followed by 10 min live Q&A)
15:05 – 15:35
Yannick Schwab
Correlative Volume Microscopy: New Tools for Sub-Cellular Exploration in Plankton, Parasites and Human Tissue
15:35 – 15:45 | Keynote – Live Q&A
15:45 - 16:00 | Awarding of speaker prizes
Dr Elizabeth Duke has spent her career working at synchrotron facilities developing X ray methods for biological research. After many years at the Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) at Daresbury Laboratory in the UK, where she contributed to advances in macromolecular crystallography including MAD phasing, automation, and beamline design, she went on to lead the design and construction of the first macromolecular crystallography beamlines at Diamond Light Source. Her research interests later expanded to X ray imaging for biology, including leading the development of cryogenic soft X ray imaging and the cryo soft X ray microscope at Diamond. Liz is currently Team Leader for Biological X ray Imaging at EMBL Hamburg, where they have developed High Throughput Tomography (HiTT) for imaging biological tissue, often within correlative, multi modal imaging workflows.
A/Prof Andrew Kingston has been working in volumetric imaging for nearly 20 years. His expertise is in computational imaging with some experience in instrumentation. He primarily develops tomographic reconstruction techniques that enable high-resolution and artefact suppression. He is the director of imaging science at the National Laboratory for X-ray Micro Computed Tomography at ANU (CTLab, https://ctlab.anu.edu.au), is on the board of the int. assoc. of computed tomography (intACT), and on the editorial board for the Elsevier Journal on tomography of materials and structures. He has published over 100 papers and is a member of the national academy of inventors with 10+ patents. In recent years he has also applied his computational skills to develop ghost imaging and tomography techniques with x rays and neutrons.
Kristina D. Micheva
Kristina D. Micheva is a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University, California, USA. She is coinventor of array tomography. Dr. Micheva is interested in synapse organization, function and plasticity, and uses correlative array tomography to explore the diversity of synapses, axons and their myelin in experimental animals and human patients.
Yannick Schwab
Dr. Yannick Schwab is a Team Leader in the Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, where he also heads the Electron Microscopy Core Facility (EMCF). He joined EMBL in 2012 and has since built a research program focused on methods development in volume correlative imaging, combining fluorescence and X-ray imaging of whole-mount specimens with volume electron microscopy. The EMCF, under his leadership, offers access to a broad portfolio of cellular EM techniques, including ultrastructural analysis, 3D electron microscopy, and CLXEM across diverse biological model systems. Beyond technology development, Dr. Schwab actively collaborates with biologists across the life sciences, with current projects spanning host-pathogen interactions, marine biology, and cell biology.
Kelly Rogers
Professor Kelly Rogers is Head of the Advanced Technology and Biology Division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) in Melbourne, Australia, where she also manages the Centre for Dynamic Imaging (CDI). After completing a PhD at Griffith University, she undertook postdoctoral research at the Institut Pasteur, Paris for 7 years before returning to Australia and establishing the CDI. The CDI is both a core facility and research lab, focused on the application and development of light microscopy techniques and volumetric imaging, such as those based on light sheet and expansion microscopy. Over the last decade, her team has developed unique workflows for studying a variety of diseases, including malaria, cancer metastasis and immune cell function, using both off the shelf and custom built microscopes and analysis pipelines.
Kazuhide Shaun Okuda
Dr. Okuda earned his PhD from the University of Auckland in 2015 and is currently a Group Leader and Senior Lecturer at the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, La Trobe University, Australia. He completed postdoctoral training at Cancer Research Malaysia and later in Professor Benjamin Hogan’s laboratory at the University of Queensland and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Across these roles, Dr. Okuda employed zebrafish models and live-imaging to identify promising anti cancer and anti lymphangiogenic compounds, visualise dynamic signalling events during vascular development and regeneration, and discover novel genes involved in lymphatic biology. In 2023, he was recruited to La Trobe University to establish his own laboratory, which focuses on identifying and characterising therapeutic targets and drug leads that modulate the vasculature using zebrafish as a model system. Dr. Okuda has received multiple imaging awards, including 1st Prize (Life Science Category) in the LMA/VIA 2021 Image Competition.
Irina Kabakova
Irina Kabakova is a Professor of Physics at UTS School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences with the broad portfolio of research activities in label-free and quantum imaging techniques. She is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centres of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC) and Optical Microcombs for Breakthrough Science (COMBS), advancing frontiers of speed and sensitivity of optical imaging techniques.
Kirk J. Czymmek
Dr. Kirk Czymmek is the Director of the Advanced Bioimaging Laboratory and Principal Investigator at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Missouri USA. Dr Czymmek received his Ph.D. in Botany and Plant Pathology at Michigan State University and has over 30 years’ experience dedicated to advanced microscopy techniques including most forms of light, x-ray, electron and correlative microscopy. His work has focused on developing and applying cutting-edge microscopy tools for imaging cells, tissues, and biomaterials. Dr Czymmek has also been instrumental in developing resources and increasing accessibility to volume EM as a leader in the volume EM community initiative.
Dr Joergen Kornfeld is a connectomics researcher and neuroscientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. His group builds a vertebrate brain scale volume electron microscopy pipeline and develops machine learning methods to automate segmentation and analysis, studying how the zebra finch stores its learned song in synaptic wiring. He studied molecular biology as an undergraduate at the University of Heidelberg and later computational biology at ETH Zurich. For his PhD he trained with Winfried Denk at the Max Planck Institute of Medical Research in Heidelberg, followed by a postdoc with Michale Fee at MIT. Joergen is a co-founder of ariadne.ai, one of the leading AI startups in analyzing volume electron microscopy data.
Nicole Schieber manages the Life Science and Soft Matter Electron Microscopy Laboratory at the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Queensland. She has extensive expertise in volume electron microscopy (vEM), spanning serial block-face SEM, FIB-SEM, array tomography, and correlative approaches that link light, X-ray and electron microscopy. Nicole’s focus is enabling reliable region of interest targeting in large, complex specimens and translating this into robust, high-resolution vEM datasets. She is President of the Volume Imaging Australia (VIA) SIG committee and is committed to advancing training, collaboration, and community engagement in volume imaging across Australia and internationally.
Floriana Salvemini is a Senior Instrument Scientist at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), where she co‑leads the operation and development of the neutron imaging instrument DINGO. She holds a PhD in Applied Physics from the University of Florence, completed in collaboration with the National Research Council (CNR) in Sesto Fiorentino, Italy. Her research focuses on advancing neutron‑based imaging and characterisation techniques across a wide range of scientific applications, with particular emphasis on the study of heritage and culturally significant materials. She has been an active contributor to the international neutron imaging community, serving on the Board of the International Society for Neutron Radiography from 2018 to 2024.
Thomas van de Kamp is an entomologist working at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany. In 2011, he obtained his PhD in Biology at the University of Düsseldorf. For his doctoral thesis he studied weevil functional morphology using synchrotron X-ray imaging and digital 3D reconstructions. Currently, he holds the position of Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator for morphological X-ray imaging at the Institute for Photon Science and Synchrotron Radiation of KIT, which operates the X-ray imaging beamlines of KIT’s particle accelerator, the KIT Light Source. His research interests include insect functional morphology, evolution and diversity & X-ray imaging of biological and paleontological specimens.
Jemima Burden currently works at the Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London. Jemima uses electron microscopy to investigate multiple research aspects of Cell Biology. Her main research interest is developing protocols and workflows for correlative light and electron microscopy and 3D electron microscopy.