Anna-Karin Gustavsson, Ph.D., joined the faculty at Rice University in the summer of 2020 as an assistant professor, CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research, and the Norman Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator Chair. Her research group strives to gain detailed information about cellular nanoscale structures, dynamics, and molecular mechanisms by designing and applying innovative and versatile imaging tools. The goal of their research is to improve our understanding of cellular function and pathogenesis by answering biophysical and biomedical questions related to multiple diseases, including cancers. 

Dr. Gustavsson received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2015. Her work focused on studying dynamic responses in single cells by combining and optimizing techniques such as fluorescence microscopy, optical tweezers, and microfluidics. Upon completion of her graduate work, Dr. Gustavsson joined the group of Nobel Laureate W. E. Moerner at Stanford University as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2015. Her research focused on the development and application of 3D single-molecule super-resolution microscopy for cellular imaging and included the implementation of light sheet illumination for optical sectioning of mammalian cells. Her work has been recognized with multiple honors, awards, and fellowships, most notably the FEBS Journal Richard Perham Prize for Young Scientists in 2012, the 3-year Swedish Research Council International Postdoc Fellowship in 2016, the PicoQuant Young Investigator Award in 2018, the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award in 2019, the CPRIT Recruitment of First-Time, Tenure-Track Faculty Members award in 2020, and the Scialog: Advancing Bioimaging Fellowship in 2021.