Rolf Erni is head of the Electron Microscopy Center of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa). He received his doctoral degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) in 2003, followed by postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Davis and at the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM), Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He then worked for FEI Company as a high-end application specialist and system engineer, moved to the University of Antwerp as a faculty member, and then returned to NCEM as a staff scientist, where he stayed until 2009. His research interests cover various topics in electron microscopy, such as ultrahigh resolution and low-voltage imaging and valence electron energy-loss spectroscopy.
