Yi Cui, PhD, Professor, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Stanford University

Yi Cui is a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He received BS in Chemistry in 1998 at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), PhD in 2002 at Harvard University. After that, he went on to work as a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at University of California, Berkeley. In 2005 he became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. In 2010 he was promoted with tenure. His current research is on nanomaterials for energy storage, photovotalics, topological insulators, biology and environment. He has founded three companies to commercialize technologies from his group: Amprius Inc., 4C Air Inc. and EEnovate Technology Inc. He is a Fellow of Materials Research Society, a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and a Fellow of Electrochemical Society. He is an Associate Editor of Nano Letters. He is a Co-Director of the Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium and a Co-Director of Battery 500 Consortium. He is a highly proliferate materials scientist and has published more than 400 research papers. In 2014, he was ranked NO.1 in Materials Science by Thomson Reuters as “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds”. His selected awards include: Blavatnik National Laureate (2017), MRS Kavli Distinguished Lectureship in Nanoscience (2015), the Sloan Research Fellowship (2010), KAUST Investigator Award (2008), ONR Young Investigator Award (2008), Technology Review World Top Young Innovator Award (2004).

James Kaschmitter, CEO, SpectraPower LLC

James Kaschmitter is the CEO of SpectraPower, which he founded in 2002. SpectraPower operates a battery research facility in Livermore, CA that performs contract energy storage research, consulting and expert witness services for government, private companies, law firms, startups and investors. Jim has founded, or co-founded, several companies in the energy storage field. He began research in Li-ion batteries in 1989 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He was co-founder and CEO of PolyStor Corporation starting in 1993. PolyStor is the only U.S. company to have commercially manufactured in high volume in the U.S. all form factors of lithium-ion cells, including cylindrical, prismatic and polymer. In 1997 Jim founded PowerStor Corporation to commercialize the carbon aerogel supercapacitor that he co-invented at LLNL. PowerStor supercapacitors are now manufactured and sold in high volume by Eaton Bussman. He founded UltraCell in 2002, which successfully developed the world’s first reformed methanol micro fuel cell. UltraCell’s micro fuel cells are currently manufactured and sold by Brentronics and are deployed with U.S military and intelligence units, and are in use in combat in the Middle East. Jim holds a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and has a bachelor’s degree in the Physics Honors Program from the University of Utah. He holds more than 20 patents in the alternative energy field. He owns, maintains and operates an experimental aircraft and holds instrument and multi-engine ratings.

Venkataraman Thangadurai, PhD, Professor and Associate Head (Graduate), Chemistry, University of Calgary

Dr. Venkataraman Thangadurai is full professor of chemistry at the University of Calgary, Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, United Kingdom. He received his BSc from Sacred Heart College in Tirupattur, India in 1989 and his MSc from Muthurangam Government Arts College in Vellore, India in 1991. He received his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1999 and did his PDF at the University of Kiel, Germany. He received a prestigious PDF fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn, Germany. Dr. Thangadurai received his Habilitation degree from the University of Kiel in 2004 and started his independent career in Calgary in 2005. He received the prestigious Keith Laidler Award from the Canadian Society for Chemistry (CSC) in 2016 for his outstanding contributions to physical chemistry. His current research activities include discovery of novel ceramic membranes and mixed ion and electron conductors for all-solid-state batteries, solid oxide cells, and electrochemical gas sensors.

Vidyu Challa, PhD, Consulting Mgr, DfR Solutions

Vidyu Challa is a battery expert/consultant and is currently Consulting Manager at Ansys-DfR Solutions. Dr. Challa helps develop battery supplier qualification programs for companies in different industry verticals such as consumer, medical, aerospace, and industrial segments. She works on a range of battery challenges including supplier qualification, battery risk mitigation, root cause analysis, design reviews, and manufacturing audits. Dr. Challa teaches battery workshops at several industry conferences and Fortune 500 companies. She spent several years in the battery industry, developing custom battery solutions for IOT and smart medical devices. She has broad-based expertise that includes engineering technology start-up experience, product development, R&D, and various roles in marketing and business development. She obtained a PhD from the University of Maryland, where her work was focused on the reliability of electronic components and systems. She is a recipient of the Phi Delta Gamma Award for Interdisciplinary Excellence as well as the Ann Wylie Dissertation Fellowship award. Dr. Challa has published her work in journals, gives invited talks at conferences and frequently writes blog articles. She most recently published a book chapter on battery failure analysis in Mcraw Hill’s Handbook of Batteries.

Dee Strand, PhD, CSO, R&D, Wildcat Discovery Technologies Inc.

Dr. Dee Strand is a Senior Scientist at Wildcat Discovery Technologies. Dr. Strand has over twenty years of experience in materials research, development, and commercialization, primarily in the areas of energy storage and electronic applications. Prior to joining Wildcat in 2013, Dr. Strand served as a Research Fellow at Dow Chemical, where she was the technical lead in Dow Energy Materials, as well as the Principal Investigator on external research programs with universities and national labs on battery materials. Dr. Strand also has extensive experience in patent analysis and technical due diligence of new technologies. Dr. Strand completed her PhD in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the supervision of Professor John Schrag. Her PhD research focused on rheology and birefringence of polymeric solutions. Dr. Strand also holds a Master of Science degree in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from North Dakota State University.

Julia van Drunen, Area Sales & Marketing Mgr, Autolab, Metrohm Autolab B V

Julia has a PhD in electrochemistry from Queen’s University, Canada, and worked for two years as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Sao Paulo before joining Metrohm Autolab in the Netherlands in 2016. She specializes in the topics of surface electrochemistry of nickel and platinum, energy conversion and storage, and the corrosion of metals and alloys.

Kia Williams, Product Mgr, Electrochemistry, Metrohm USA

Kia has a PhD in chemistry from the University of South Florida. Kia’s work included analyzing porous carbon materials for energy storage and conversion applications. Kia joined Metrohm in 2018 as the Electrochemistry Product Manager where she focuses on electrochemical and spectroelectrochemical applications.

Marcel Drüschler, PhD, CEO, Sales & Marketing, rhd instruments GmbH & Co. KG

Marcel has a PhD in chemistry from the University of Marburg, Germany. He is an enthusiastic electrochemist with a demonstrated history of developing solutions for challenging tasks in the field of energy storage and conversion as well as classical electrochemistry. As co-founder and CEO of rhd instruments, he leads a skilled team focusing on creating innovative and intelligent lab equipment as well as on developing powerful EIS data analysis software.

Michael L. Sanders, Senior Advisor, Energy, Avicenne

Mike has significant energy storage materials value chain understanding with an emphasis on lithium ion batteries and systems with 13 years of market knowledge and relationships. Successful program leadership experience with significant business growth in ventures and existing businesses with a proven track record leading mergers and acquisition team to enter the lithium ion battery materials market. He joined AVICENNE in May of 2016 as a Senior Advisor. Since joining the AVICENNE team, Mike has been leading the US AVICENNE activity working with many clients holding strategy workshops, validation of growth opportunities, helping clients establish their growth plans in energy storage and establishing M&A targets/diligence. Before joining AVICENNE, Mike had a very long career with DuPont, his most recent role was the Global Marketing Director – Energy Storage Venture where he developed significant understanding and insights for the energy storage materials market, device manufacturing and systems while leading global marketing and customer interface efforts to establish programs to enter the $20B energy storage materials market. Executed strategic and market planning for opportunity evaluation, research, choices and M&A activity for entry into rapidly growing new market. He has a degree in Chemistry from the University of Delaware and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers and Electrochemical Society.

Kandler Smith, PhD, Senior Engineer, Energy Storage, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Kandler Smith leads the battery computational modeling team in NREL's Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences. His energy storage research projects focus on predicting and extending the lifetime of lithium-ion batteries. He also applies machine-learning techniques for model identification, fast charging, and the computational design and multi-scale modeling of electrochemical/thermal/mechanical-coupled phenomena in lithium-ion batteries.

Shmuel De-Leon, CEO, Shmuel De-Leon Energy Ltd.

Shmuel De-Leon, Founder and CEO of Shmuel De-Leon Energy Ltd., is a leading international expert in the business of energy storage. Prior to founding the company, for over 21 years, Shmuel held various positions as an energy storage, electronic engineering, and quality control team manager. Shmuel holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Tel Aviv University, and an M.B.A. in Quality Control and Reliability Engineering from the Technion Institute in Haifa, as well as an Electronic Technician's diploma.