Microscopy Home PageTo understand how and why these Web pages came into being, you need to know a little about me and my interests. Here's a brief outline.
I have a masters degree in floral and fruit anatomy and my studies of pollen and embryo development involved a good deal of light microscopy. Later, I worked as an assistant in an electron microscope lab and became interested in cryo-SEM of plant tissues and in X-ray microanalysis. As well as the microscopy, I found the computing elements of my work rather rewarding, so finally I moved full-time into a computing support role, a job I still hold.
I'm now the Microcomputing Manager at Long Ashton Research Station near Bristol in England. Long Ashton is part of the Institute of Arable Crops Research and also a department of Bristol University.
If you want to know even more about me, you can visit my personal home page at Bristol University.
This leaves me fully occupied in computing but with a continuing keen interest in microscopy. Coupled with an awareness of the lack of a Web home for microscopists, and Internet access from my PC at home, the result is almost inevitable; these pages.
I hope you'll enjoy using them as much as I'm enjoying creating them. Please send me an e-mail if you have useful comments or suggestions to make; and please be patient, this is a strictly part-time venture. It will grow, but sometimes it may grow more slowly than I would like.
I intend to improve the extent and depth of coverage of these pages to serve the needs of microscopists more fully. The World Wide Web is still only a few years old and its coverage of most subjects remains full of gaps. Microscopy is no exception.
The In-Focus series of short articles will continue to grow, as will the reference section. Other possibilities abound, I'll be doing my best to fulfil them. Watch this space! If you have some good ideas, or if you'd like to contribute an In-Focus article, e-mail me.