Mission Statement

The Center for Microscopy and Imaging (CMI) at Smith College is a core facility within the Clark Science Center.  Our mission is to enhance the teaching, training and research endeavors of the College’s students, staff and faculty.

The CMI maintains and provides access to multiple light and electron microscopes as well as support equipment and facilities.  We provide training and access and offer consul on experimental design, data acquisition and data analysis.

When possible, we organize and participate in community outreach and provide access and collaboration to visiting researchers.

Professor Esther Carpenter and a Smith College student working on Smith’s first Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). Esther Carpenter was a zoology professor at Smith College from 1933 until her retirement in 1968. The TEM, a Philips, arrived at Smith College in 1966.

Equipment History

	1966	Arrival of first Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) - Philips 200
	1982	Replacement of Philips 200 TEM with a JEOL JEM-100CXII TEM
	1985	Arrival of first Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) - JEOL 25
	1990	Replacement of JEOL 25 SEM with a JEOL JSM 6400 SEM
	1997	Arrival of first Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope (LSCM) - Leica DM IRBE
	2001	Arrival of first research-grade Light Microscope (LM) - Olympus BX51
	2008	Replacement of Leica DM IRBE LSCM with a Leica TCS SP5 LSCM
	2010	Replacement of JEOL JSM 6400 SEM with a FEI Quanta 450 SEM
	2012	Arrival of second research-grade Light Microscope (LM) - Nikon Eclipse Ti-S
	2015	Arrival of first Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscope (TIRFM) - Nikon Eclipse Ti-E
	2017	Replacement of Olympus BX51 LM with a Zeiss Axio Imager M2 Light Microscope (LM)
	2019	Replacement of JEOL JEM-100CXII TEM with a JEOL JEM-1400 Flash TEM
	2021	Arrival of first Light Sheet Fluorescence Microscope (LSFM) – Bruker Luxendo MuVi-SPIM