John C.H.Spence ForMemRS completed a PhD in Physics at Melbourne University  in 1972,  followed by a postdoc at Oxford in Materials. He was the Director of Science for the NSF  "BioXFEL" Science and Technology Center, a consortium of seven US Universities devoted to the development of hard X-ray lasers for structural biology. He received the Distinguished Scientist and Burton  awards from MSA,  the Buerger Award from ACA and the Cowley Medal from IFSM. He was a Fellow of  AAAS,  of APS, of MSA, of IOP, and an overseas Fellow of Churchill College. He was Co-Editor of Acta Cryst. for a decade and was Main Editor of IUCrJ (XFEL Science). He served on many advisory committees (eg BESAC) and was chair of the IUCR Commission on Electron Diffraction. A Festschrift of Ultramicroscopy appeared in 2011. His research is focussed on atomic-resolution electron microscopy for imaging atomic processes in solids, defects and bonding in materials, and instrumentation development for new microscopies. John teached graduate condensed matter physics at ASU, with a joint appointment at LBNL.

Professor John Spence ForMemRS died on 28 June 2021.