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Message from the Director

Thank you for your interest in the McCrone Research Institute. I hope that you are encouraged by the microscopy education and research here.

In 1960, Dr. McCrone proclaimed that there is no field of science that cannot, at least to a small extent, be helped by the microscope and a good microscopist. He founded his institute to teach, carry out research, and educate scientists in the field that he knew would be of enormous importance to the technical and educational world. The basic premise that microscopy – learned by doing, observing, and interpreting – is the foundation upon which the McCrone Research Institute is built.

Gary Laughlin
Executive Director

Director’s Biography

Gary Laughlin is senior research microscopist and instructor since 1987 at McCrone Research Institute in Chicago. He conducts applied research in microscopy and microanalysis and holds the position of principle investigator and project director for research. He is the director of Microscope Publications, a division of McCrone Research Institute Inc., and chief editor of The Microscope journal. In addition, he organizes and chairs the Inter/Micro microscopy symposium conducted annually in Chicago. Dr. Laughlin is adjunct associate professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago and adjunct visiting professor of chemical microscopy in the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University where he has been teaching the summer Chemical Microscopy course for more than 20 years. He currently serves as executive director of McCrone Research Institute, since 2004.

Laughlin earned his B.S. in criminalistics/chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago and his Ph.D. in metallurgical and materials engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

A Chicago native, Laughlin is a life member on the board of directors and past president of the State Microscopical Society of Illinois, a fellow in the Royal Microscopical Society, and a member of the New York Microscopical Society, American Chemical Society, American Society of Trace Evidence Examiners, and the American Institute for Conservation.

He has presented guest lectureships for industry, government, and academia throughout the United States and taught hundreds of courses to thousands of students from around the world.