It’s the giving season and a Burnaby company did just that by gifting a new microscope to Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Richmond campus.
Richmond’s KPU researchers, faculty and students were presented an electron microscope from Ballard Power Systems, a developer and manufacturer of fuel cell products for vehicles, radio towers and other power-related machines, to help with “serious research” in areas such as physics, material sciences and microbiology.
Dr. James Hoyland, a physics instructor at KPU, was one of the first to receive the microscope – a gift to represent the “relationship between Ballard Power and KPU.”
“For our students to have hands on experience in electron microscopy is something that is going to be a really good feather in their cap as they go on to search for jobs in high technology industries,” said Dr. Hoyland.
“Electron microscopy is widely used and for our students to be able to go into the labour market having actually used one is actually quite unusual.”
The electron microscope will be given priority for third- and fourth-year science students; however, other members of the university community can also use it.
Nemanja Azaric, senior materials scientist with Ballard Power, said the electron microscope allows people to see the world on a microscopic level.
“For a student, it’s a great learning tool as it provides students a practical example of a lot of advanced multi-disciplinary principles working together and you get to generate some pretty cool looking images,” said Azaric, adding that electron microscopy is “a technique that can be used and applied by most fields of STEM and is used heavily in industry” for many potential employees.
