As a professor of Cell Biology a major focus of his research has been to develop, build, and apply computer aided microscopes and analysis tools for imaging subcellular events at all levels of resolution within fixed and living systems. These include high speed Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence microscopes able to image at 100 frames/second, high speed confocal systems able to collect multicolor 3D stacks in the second timeframe and other prototype confocal systems able to scan very large tissue sections with submicron resolution at very high speed. His achievements in this field led to his promotion to Distinguished Professor in 2014. Most recently he has been developing very high speed deep tissue imaging solutions to collect quantitative images at the diffraction limit of entire tissues including brain. The devices being worked on are effectively 20-30 times faster than a conventional confocal microscope making truly massive scale imaging a possibility. These studies are performed in both living and fixed systems.
Dr. Watkins is the author of over 700 publications and has an H index of 136. View a list of his publications here.
He is an invited reviewer of many journals, including Muscle and Nerve, Journal of Neurological Sciences, Journal of Cell Biology, “Agents and Actions,” American Journal of Pathology, and Journal of Immunology. He is an editor of Current Protocols in Cytometry, Experimental Science and Medicine, and Microscopy Today.