Dee Breger

One day in 1995, Dee Breger's office phone played a message from a male voice she couldn't identify, who on call-back turned out to be a Dr. Pierre Rioux of ISPE. When she heard the name, she said it sounded like something made with flour and butter. A responding laugh from Pierre initiated a friendship that continues to this day. Pierre had called for information to add to a review he was writing for her coffee-table book of images from the scanning electron microscope, Journeys in Microspace. Their continuing mutual intellectual and artistic respect led to Pierre's proposal of Dee's work for the Whiting award, which she was highly pleased to receive in 2002, with publication of an essay and images in Telicom.

Dee followed a degree in studio art from the University of Wisconsin by combining her twin loves of science and art as a scientific illustrator at Columbia University's Earth science research institute in Palisades, NY, now known as the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. She quickly switched to full time operation of Lamont's transmission electron microscope and then to the scanning electron microscope (SEM) when Lamont acquired one of the first commercially available models. In 1982 Dee founded Lamont’s (and Columbia's) first professional SEM and X-ray microanalysis Facility, serving as its Manager for the next 22 years. In 2004 she went to Drexel University as Director of Microscopy, and moved to Saratoga NY in 2009 to devote more time to her new small company called Micrographic Arts.

Although she has specialized in scanning electron microscopy since the inception of this technology, Breger has also worked in other capacities in various laboratory and field programs in many of the Earth sciences and continues to work with Lamont scientists. To date, she has participated on over 30 expeditions in many far-flung corners of the world, mostly at sea, with an emphasis on Antarctic oceanography. She has been working since 1999 with a small international team of maverick scientists bringing to light a higher rate of cosmic impacts since the last ice age than are currently accepted, impacts that have changed the course of human history. In 2008 she participated in Siberian centennial conferences commemorating the 1908 Tunguska meteor explosion there. The Siberian trip included being dropped by helicopter into the blast's epicenter in the Tunguska taiga, where the team camped for five days to study the terrain and collect samples for SEM analysis.

At the intersection of science, art, education, and technology, Dee has encouraged a delight in the many worlds of science through her image and video-based lectures in K-12 schools, nature clubs, professional events, and other venues that include the Explorers Club and the luxury cruise ship The World. Dee's prize-winning images adorn the walls of numerous science museums, corporations, galleries and private homes, and are routinely featured in the media. Her work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine and the BBC documentary Hidden Visions. She is currently working on several new coffee-table books, exhibitions and related projects. A Fellow of the Explorers Club since 1995, Dee has served as Field Associate with Liberty Science Center, Council Member of the New York Hall of Science, and is an ISPE Mentor.

For further information, please visit www.micrographicArts.com .