2026 Photomicrography Competition
Top 20
Honorable Mentions
Images of Distinction
Judges
Joe Dragavon, Ph.D
Director
BioFrontiers Institute’s Advanced Light Microscopy Core
Dr. Dragavon is also the Director of Core Facilities and Shared Instrumentation at the University of Colorado Boulder. Prior to Boulder, he completed a five-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Pasteur Institute in Paris in the Plate-forme d’Imagerie Dynamique under the supervision of the late Dr. Spencer Shorte. He currently serves as President of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (ABRF), a U.S.-based organization dedicated to advancing core facilities and shared research resources.
Quinten Geldhof
Technical Designer
Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts
Quinten develops interactive exhibits that inspire curiosity and lifelong learning. In 2022, he became captivated by the microscopic world and the extraordinary complexity hidden even within a single drop of pond water. Seeking to share that perspective, he began creating microscopy videos on Instagram under the name @microhobbyist, where his work has since reached millions of viewers. His work has been featured by National Geographic, BBC, and Business Insider, and he has collaborated with the Museum of Science on digital initiatives, including The Year of Being Human and The Year of Revolutionary Science. Geldhof also brings firsthand competition experience, having placed 5th in the 2024 Small World in Motion competition. He now joins the Nikon Small World judging panel with an appreciation for the craft and creativity behind microscopic imaging.
Corey S. Powell
Science Writer
Corey is an award-winning science writer, editor, and communicator. He is the former editor-in-chief of Discover and American Scientist magazines, and a contributor to Aeon and IEEE Spectrum. In his science outreach he has collaborated with Bill Nye on four books (Undeniable, Unstoppable, Everything All at Once, and the upcoming Picture Guide to the Cosmos), two TV shows (Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix and The End is Nye on Peacock), and the Science Rules podcast. During the pandemic he co-founded OpenMind, a Pulitzer-supported digital magazine that addresses science controversies and misinformation. He also coordinates physics outreach for the University of Rochester. Powell currently writes a column, Invisible Universe, about the layers of reality beyond human perception, and is working on an upcoming book of the same name due to be published by HarperOne.
Meredith Sagolla, Ph.D.
Director
Center for Advanced Light Microscopy and Electron Microscopy (CALM-EM) at Genentech
With 19 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, Dr. Sagolla is a recognized expert in applying advanced imaging technology and complex image analysis to high-impact research programs. Dr. Sagolla joined Genentech in 2007 and has progressively led the organization’s primary core imaging facilities, aligning technological strategies with unmet research needs across departments. Her tenure at Genentech has been marked by her strategic oversight of advanced microscopy workflows, including confocal, spinning disk confocal, and light sheet microscopy to support diverse therapeutic areas such as neuroscience, oncology, and immunology. Dr. Sagolla earned her Ph.D. in plant biology from the University of California, Berkeley in the lab of Dr. Zacheus Cande. Her love of microscopy stems from her doctoral research pioneering three-dimensional analyses of the cytoskeleton in model organisms such as Giardia lamblia and fission yeast, using live-cell imaging and deconvolution microscopy.
