William E. Moerner

William Esco Moerner was born June 24, 1953, and trained as a physical chemist drawn to the behavior of matter at its smallest scales. Working with postdoc Lothar Kador, he pulled off the first optical detection and spectroscopy of a single molecule in a condensed phase - a breakthrough that turned molecules from invisible averages into observable individuals. The technique spread fast across chemistry, physics, and biology, giving researchers a new lens on processes that bulk measurements had always blurred. In 2014 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognized the work. He continues in biophysics and single-molecule imaging, still watching the very small do very particular things.