James Hillier

James Hillier was an influential Canadian physicist and innovator in electron optics. As a graduate student at the University of Toronto under professor E.F. Burton, Hillier worked with fellow student Albert Prebus to design and construct the first practical electron microscope in the Western Hemisphere in 1938.

Operating at magnifications vastly exceeding the theoretical limits of optical light microscopes, their instrument allowed scientists to view viruses, cellular organelles, and macromolecules for the first time. Hillier later directed RCA Laboratories in Princeton, holding forty-one patents and receiving the Lasker Award for his foundational contributions to biological microscopy.