C. Shan Xu’s primary research interest is transformative instrumentation development enabling discoveries from basic science to engineering. His interdisciplinary inventions (20 plus patents) and numerous publications cover areas of physical chemistry, semiconductor engineering, and biology. Shan received his B.S. degree from University of Science and Technology of China, and his Ph.D. degree from University of California at Berkeley, both in Physical Chemistry. After graduation, he joined Lam Research Corporation in 1997, growing from an entry level engineer to a technical director in the R&D department, developing and disseminating advanced technology/equipment to serve worldwide customers. Curiosity of how the brain works led Shan to join the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2009, where he has pioneered and developed the enhanced FIB-SEM technology for large-volume 3D imaging at Janelia Research Campus. Over the past decade, Shan has transformed FIB-SEM from a conventional lab tool lacking long term reliability to a robust imaging platform with 100% effective reliability, expanding the imageable volume by more than four orders of magnitude, enabling the largest and most detailed connectome to date, and revealing transformational discoveries in cell biology. As the head of FIB-SEM Technology division, Shan’s current focus is to develop new generation platforms offering even faster image acquisition with larger volumes, and disseminate this transformative technology beyond life science to benefit much wider research communities world-wide.