Sabrina Leslie

My academic training began in 1998 as an undergraduate at UBC, where I immersed myself in the Combined Honours Physics and Mathematics Program, graduating as a Canada Scholar and recipient of the CK Choi Presidential Award. In 2002, I moved to UC Berkeley as an NSERC fellow to pursue doctoral studies in optical and atomic physics. Under the guidance of Dr. Dan Stamper-Kurn, I pioneered imaging experiments of disorder-to-order transitions of atomic vapours held in optical traps. My PhD work was published in top journals and provided me with extensive training in instrumentation, imaging, data analysis, and team-based science. 

In 2009, I made a significant transition, from visualizing atoms in vacuum chambers, to visualizing biomolecules in liquids; a transition by a desire to get a little closer to life in my research. My transition to the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University was made possible with a Mary Fieser postdoctoral fellowship, which was awarded to me with the mandate of exploring this inspiration. At Harvard I invented a single-molecule imaging technology called Convex Lens-induced Confinement (CLiC), which established me as a pioneer in single-molecule investigations.

 In 2012, I became an Assistant Professor at McGill University and founded my research group. I have developed CLiC into a platform technology and used it for new studies of nucleic acids, proteins, polymers, nanomaterials, biologics, cells, etc. My time at McGill has been productive and I was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2017. To expand, commercialize, and protect my technology and key applications, I co-founded a start-up company ScopeSys, with a technical and business team based in Canada. In 2021 I moved with my lab to UBC Vancouver as an Associate Professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories.