Rate My Professor Sara Bals

Sara Bals is a Full Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Antwerp, where she has held progressively senior academic positions since completing her PhD. She earned her Master of Science in Physics from the University of Antwerp in 1999 and her PhD in Physics in 2003, with a thesis titled 'Optimisation of superconducting thin films and tapes by transmission electron microscopy.' Following her doctorate, she conducted postdoctoral research at the National Center for Electron Microscopy (NCEM) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States from 2003 to 2004, and then as an FWO Postdoctoral Fellow at EMAT, University of Antwerp, from 2004 to 2007. She advanced to Assistant Professor (2007–2012), Associate Professor (2012–2014), Professor (2014–2018), and Full Professor since 2018. Bals serves on several internal committees, including the Department Council of Physics, Faculty Assembly of the Faculty of Science, Education Committee of Physics, Bachelor Physics Examination Committee, and Physics Progress Committee. She teaches courses such as Microscopy Techniques for Biology students and General Physics II for Physics students.

Her research specializes in the application and development of electron tomography for the 3D characterization of functional nanomaterials at the atomic scale, including in situ measurements under realistic conditions such as heating, liquid, or gas flow. Key projects include the ERC Starting Grant 'Colouring Atoms in 3 Dimensions' (2013) and ERC Consolidator Grant 'REALNANO: 3D Structure of Nanomaterials under Realistic Conditions' (2019), along with the Francqui Research Professor mandate (2017–2020). She has received the European Microscopy Society Award (2020), ACS Nano Lectureship Award (2021), and election to the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. Bals is an associate editor for ACS Nano and has authored over 475 publications in international peer-reviewed journals, amassing over 24,000 citations and an h-index of 80 on Google Scholar. Notable works include 'Three-dimensional valency mapping in ceria nanocrystals' (2014), 'Fast Electron Tomography for Nanomaterials' (2020), and contributions to the 'Handbook of Nanoscopy' (Wiley-VCH). Her innovations, such as ultraclean graphene grids and SEEBIC imaging, have advanced high-throughput 3D analysis of beam-sensitive materials like perovskites and chiral nanoparticles, impacting fields including catalysis, optoelectronics, energy storage, and sustainable technologies through structure-property correlations and dynamic studies.