Researcher biography
Roger Wepf is the Director of the Center for Microscopy and Microanalysis (CMM) at The University of Queensland.
He was born in Strasbourg (France), and received academic degrees in cell biology and structure research in 1992 at the ETH. After a post-doctoral fellowship (Biocenter Basel/ETH Zurich), Roger joined the physical instrumentation program at EMBL, Heidelberg, in the Max Haider group, developing cryo-technology for corrected LVSEM and EM applications.
Roger was appointed junior group leader in the cell biology program at EMBL in 1996. He then moved to Beiersdorf AG (BDF) for nine years as head of the analytical microscopy department, in the research division of BDF based in Hamburg. He worked mainly on human skin morphomics of treated and untreated skin, colloidal systems, polymers and adhesives analytics meanwhile developing novel methods and instruments for nano-analytic technology research for in-vivo and ex-vivo studies. Roger’s main focus was developing cryo-preparation techniques for imaging and spectroscopy application including scanning probe techniques. Some of the instruments, which found their way to the market are a versatile high vacuum cryo-transfer system (VCT); cryo-stages for SEM and below the lens analytical instruments, a medical approved derma 2-photo laser scanning microscope together with JenLab, cryo-SPM adaptions, High Pressure Freezer (HPM100) to name a few.
In May 2006 he was elected Director of the EM Center of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EMEZ/ ETH Zurich) and became Technical Director of the Scientific Center for Optical and Electron Microscopy (ScopeM) in 2014. Roger served as President of the European Microscopy Society (EMS) from 2012–2016.
Roger’s major research activities at ETH Zurich were focused in the field of correlative microscopy, automatic sample preparation and imaging techniques for particle imaging and spectroscopy technology. Currently his research direction leads to developing tools for integrative imaging and spectroscopy workflows and multimodal imaging and techniques with a main focus on imaging mass spectrometry to explore new frontiers in structure research across UQ research disciplines.