David McComb

David McComb, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis (CEMAS), an Ohio Research Scholar and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University. A chemistry graduate from the University of Glasgow, David completed his PhD in Physics at the University of Cambridge. David is an expert in the development and application of electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) as a sub-nanometer scale probe for chemistry, structure, and bonding. He has developed and implemented approaches to studying inorganic, organic, and molecular systems using electron microscopy techniques.

He has extensive experience in the application of EELS to the study of problems in sold-state chemistry and materials science, including structural and compositional variations in high-k oxides, short range magnetic order in transition metal oxides, interfaces in fuel cells, photovoltaics, multiferroics and biomaterials. In recent years, he has focused his attention on developing and implementing approaches to studying organic and molecular systems using these methods. He has demonstrated that these methods can be used to obtain unique insights into materials such on polymers for organic photovoltaics, biomineralized tissues, amyloid plaques, wear particles in macrophage cells associated with metal hip implants, molecular fragments associated with degradation of carbon nanotubes in cells and mechanisms for early stage mineralization processes. He is a fellow of the Microscopy Society of America and the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Materials. In October 2011, he joined The Ohio State University as the founding director of the Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis (CEMAS). This multidisciplinary facility drives the application of state-of-the-art electron microscopy techniques to strategic research challenges in the physical, engineering, life and medical sciences at Ohio State and beyond.