We are happy to announce that 2026 OMS Spring meeting will be hold on Friday, May 1st, 2026 at the National Weather Center located on the University of Oklahoma, Norman research campus. Our spring meeting is the largest gathering of microscopy professionals from both academic and industry in the Great State of Oklahoma. Please mark your calendar. We look forward to meeting all of you May!
Theme and Keynote
The meeting theme is centered around providing workshops for our two new advanced transmission electron microscopes at OU (A Thermofisher FEI Tundra cryo-TEM and a JEOL JEMF200 “NEOARM” aberration corrected STEM). More details will be provided soon!
We currently have two keynote speakers planned, one for each of our workshop thrusts.
Materials Keynote Speaker
Yongtao Liu is a staff scientist at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Dr. Liu’s current work focuses on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with physics to develop autonomous experimentation platforms, especially autonomous microscopy, that accelerate progress in materials science. He is engaged in interdisciplinary projects and is committed to fostering synergy between human expertise and AI, he strives to develop innovative tools and methods that empower researchers worldwide. Dr. Liu’s research interests also include functional materials, including ferroelectric, optoelectronic, and photovoltaic materials. His contributions to the field have been recognized with multiple awards / honors, such as the Microscopy Society of America Postdoctoral Scholar Award, the Joseph E. Spruiell Award for Excellence in Research, ORNL Outstanding Scholarly Output Award, Microscopy Today Innovation Award, R&D 100 Award, and Rising Star in Nanoscience.
Sponsors
Many thanks to our Sponsors, who make this meeting possible: JEOL USA, and ThermoFisher!
Microscopy Society of America (MSA) Grant-In-Aid and Tour Speaker programs provide critical support. OMS is a ‘local affiliate society’ of MSA.
Meeting registration
Registration fees include continental breakfast and lunch. There are no additional fees for abstract submission.
- Student registration: FREE!
- Member registration: $15.00
- Non-member registration: $30.00
- Corporate standard registration: $400.00
- Corporate special coffee break sponsorship (Includes 15-minute presentation slot): $600.00
Register here: https://okmicroscopy.org/event/2026-oms-spring-meeting-registration/
Opportunities for students
The meeting is a great opportunity to network with other students and professionals from Oklahoma who use microscopy as part of their work. Ways students can participate, in addition to attending the meeting:
- Submit an abstract to enter the Timpano Award contest or present a poster. Students competing for the Timpano will present a 15 minute talk. The winner will receive funding to send them to the national Microscopy Society of America annual meeting. There is also a cash prize for second place. There are also cash prizes for student poster awards!
link to submit abstract - Submit an image to the Best Micrograph contest
link to instructions
Tentative Program
| Time | Description / Who | Title / notes |
| 8:30 AM | Room open for setup (food, vendors, and posters etc) | |
| 9:00 AM | Opening Remarks | OMS Committee and Anne West on behalf of OU |
| 9:05 – 10:05 AM | Biology Keynote: TBD | Talk Title TBD |
| 10:05 AM – 10:30 AM | Vendor (TBD) Sponsored Coffee Break and Vendor Showcase | |
| 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM | Student/Faculty Talks | Call for abstracts open now! |
| 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM | Lunch and Learn | Here the event will split into two sessions dependent on registrant’s choice. |
| 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM | Thermofisher Presentations | TBD |
| 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM | JEOL Presentations | TBD |
| 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM | Vendor Talks | TBD |
| 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Materials Keynote: Dr. Yongtao Liu – ORN | Self-Driving Scanning Probe Microscopy via Programmatic Control and Real-Time Machine Learning |
| 3:00 – 3:30 PM | Poster Session | |
3:30 – 4:00 PM | Vendor (TBD) Sponsored Coffee Break | |
| 4:00 – 5:00 PM | Closing Remarks and Cleanup |