Jayden Grunde Receives MSA Student Scholar Award for Microscopy and Microanalysis 2026

Image courtesy Microscopy Society of America

We are delighted to share that TIME Research Group Ph.D. student Jayden Grunde has been selected as a Student Scholar by the Microscopy Society of America (MSA) to attend Microscopy and Microanalysis 2026. This award recognizes outstanding graduate students working at the forefront of microscopy and microanalysis, and provides recipients with financial support and professional development opportunities at one of the field's premier annual meetings.

Jayden joined the TIME group after completing two DOE SULI internships with our team at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, where he distinguished himself through methodical, rigorous work on automated prototyping and materials processing with plasma focused ion beam (PFIB) systems. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Colorado School of Mines, with research focused on the autonomous characterization and processing of power electronic materials under the A Center for Power Electronics Manufacturing and Exploration (APEX) Energy Frontier Research Center. His doctoral work sits at the intersection of PFIB automation, AI-driven experimentation, and defect characterization in wide-bandgap semiconductors — precisely the kind of scholarship the MSA Student Scholar Award was designed to recognize and support.

This recognition is well-deserved. Congratulations, Jayden — we look forward to seeing your work take center stage at M&M 2026.