He was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy"[6] along with Stefan Hell and fellow Cornell alumnus William E.

Aspiring to work in the aerospace industry, Betzig studied physics at the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a BS degree in 1983.

Inspired by Moerner's research, Betzig became the first person to image individual fluorescent molecules at room temperature while determining their positions within less than .2 micrometers in 1993.

He spent some years as a stay-at-home dad before reentering the workforce in 1996, when he took up the position of vice president of research and development at Ann Arbor Machine Company, which was partially owned by the Betzig family.

In October of that year, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus hired him, but his lab was still under construction at the time.

[9] In early 2006, he formally joined Janelia as a group leader to work on developing super high-resolution fluorescence microscopy techniques.