This report of the 2011 James L. Waters Symposium at Pittcon 2011 highlights the powerful imaging technologies of electron microscopy (EM) and ion microscopy (IM). The four speakers each provided a window into a specific subset of the field:•David Bell described the history, development, application, and commercialization of transmission EM (TEM) and scanning TEM (STEM);•David Martin presented the challenges and methodologies of imaging ordered polymers and biomaterials with TEM;•Joseph Michael explained the history of the commercialization of scanning EM (SEM) and its modern applications; and,•David Joy, who submitted his talk in absentia, provided a history of EM and a summary of the advantages of IM versus EM.