Speaker Biographies by Company

Product Manager
No bio available

CEO
Jenna King has more than eighteen years of experience working with technology companies ranging from startup ventures to large public companies. Ms. King served as General Counsel and a member of the executive leadership team of Zimmer Dental. She began her professional career as a corporate attorney at Cooley LLP.

CTO
Ionel Stefan is Amprius’ Chief Technology Officer. He joined Amprius in its very early days as a Senior Scientist, initially to lead electrochemistry for silicon nanowire anode-based lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Stefan now leads Amprius' development of silicon nanowire electrochemistry, cell technology -- including material design, cell design and engineering -- and product development.

Consulting Manager
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.

Director, Business Development
Maggie Alexander is the Director of Business Development at Apparent, Inc., where she leads commercialization and product deployment efforts for Apparent’s intelligent energy management systems, specifically the development and execution of Apparent’s strategy for behind-the-meter distributed energy resources. Maggie has more than a decade of experience in business and project development, establishing partnerships and programs with national and international governments, environmental organizations, electric utilities and technology companies. She holds a BA in Journalism and an MSc in Environmental Sciences and Policy.

Postdoctoral Appointee, Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division
Quinton originated from the Atlanta, GA area where he attended Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA; receiving his BS in Chemistry in 2013. Following this he began his graduate career at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL under the mentorship of Lei Zhu, PhD with focus on the synthesis and characterization of organic materials for light-emitting devices, culminating in the defense his PhD in Chemistry in 2018. Currently he is a postdoctoral appointee at Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago, IL where he is a member of the Advanced Electrolyte Research group headed by Zhengcheng “John” Zhang, PhD in the Electrochemical Energy Storage department. Currently Quinton’s research is focused on the synthesis and electrochemical characterization of new electrolyte systems, additives, and binders for applications in Lithium-Sulfur electrochemical cells.

Program Lead, Stationary Storage, Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS)
Sue Babinec is the Program Lead – Stationary Storage at Argonne National Lab where she is tasked to establish a sustainable growth strategy towards stationary storage for grid applications. Babinec previously served six years in Washington DC as senior commercialization advisor at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) where she co-managed the energy storage portfolio for both transportation and grid.  Prior to ARPA-E she led several research groups focused on design and scale-up of Li-ion technologies as a technical director for A123 Systems, Inc. at its Ann Arbor Michigan, site.  Babinec spent the first two decades of her career in Midland at The Dow Chemical Corp., where she was the Senior Electrochemist, a member of the Corporate VC group, was awarded the Inventor of the Year Award, and was the company’s first woman Corporate Fellow. She was also co-inventor of a low-cost display technology that was spun out as the venture-funded start-up, holds more than 45 patents, and has authored or coauthored dozens of journal articles and book chapters.

Principal Materials Science Engineer, Applied Materials Division
Anil is a Principal Material Science Engineer at applied materials division (AMD), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). 15+ years' R&D experience in thin film nanostructure materials growth especially via ALD/CVD, nanomaterial characterization & materials integration into nano-devices. Anile worked in semiconductor industries and has hand-on expertise with commercial high-volume production of CVD & ALD multi-station wafer processing tools and processes. 75+ peer-reviewed publications, 25+ patents, 4 R&D100 awards (known as the ​"Oscars of Innovation"). He completed the DOE Energy I-Corps Cohort 9 program. His current research interests include: (a) Research and development of next-generation technologically feasible nanostructure materials design, creation and engineering, especially by ALD/CVD techniques. (b) In-situ materials growth study focus on surface/interface chemistry, thorough materials and test devices characterizations and search for near-term emerging applications. (c) Applications: Li-ion batteries, 2D Materials, nanocomposites, functional coatings, MEMS devices, photodetectors, etc.

Materials Recycling Group Leader
Jeff Spangenberger is the Materials Recycling Group Leader in the Applied Materials Division at Argonne National Laboratory. His group works to solve material separation, recovery and recycling challenges resulting in cost effective and environmentally sustainable processes resulting in commercialized plants. Spangenberger and his team have demonstrated the recovery of plastics, metals and materials from numerous waste streams such as auto shredder residue, electronic waste, and furniture at scales ranging from bench to commercial. He has received four patents related to this effort. In recent years, his research has expanded into lithium ion battery recycling and is leading Argonne’s advanced battery recycling program to evaluate and advance the cost effective and sustainable recycling of end-of-life batteries.

Chemist
Dr. Lu Zhang is a recognized leader in the field of redox shuttle and flow batteries. He has been very active in this field during his postdoctoral and junior staff position with Argonne. His background includes not only organic chemistry, but also electrochemistry, cell design, state-of-the-art characterization, and mechanical analysis.

President
Brian Barnett recently founded Battery Perspectives LLC, a company providing consulting services related to battery technology and battery safety. Dr. Barnett has extensive experience in assessment, development and commercialization of battery technology and is recognized as both a technical and industry expert related to batteries and an expert in battery safety. He has directed a series of successful lab-based, highly multidisciplinary battery technology development programs that resulted in technology licensing or sale.

CEO
Dr. Martin Ebner is CEO and President of Battrion AG in Switzerland. He holds BS and MS degrees from ETH Zurich in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, respectively. He received his PhD in the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics under the supervision of Prof. Vanessa Wood at ETH.

Head, Price Assessments
Andrew Miller holds the position of Senior Analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a London based research and consultancy firm focusing on critical raw materials and disruptive supply chains. Andrew's primary role is to collect price data on opaque mineral markets such as lithium, graphite and cobalt, and process and analyse this data into regular market reports, forecasting and indices published by Benchmark. At Benchmark, Andrew regularly travels to active mines and processing plants in many different countries with a specialist focus on China. He is also invited to give market-focused presentations around the world including Canada, China, Australia and U.S. In his role at Benchmark, Andrew has advised some of the world’s leading institutional investors and mining companies. Andrew's previous role was as an Analyst with Industrial Minerals / Metal Bulletin covering the graphite and fluorspar markets for three years. Prior to this position, Andrew started his career analysing financial markets for UK-based Invesco Perpetual and is first-class honours educated in Economics from the University of East Anglia, UK. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence publishes data-orientated subscription products on niche mineral markets that are consumed in disruptive technology such as smartphones, tablets, electric vehicles, renewable energy and batteries.

Manager, Energy Storage
James heads up the Energy Storage team at BloombergNEF. He leads the company’s coverage on energy storage technologies and the lithium battery supply chain, providing insights on technology, markets, policies and regulation. James leads the team in producing a mix of quick take insights on market events and longer deep dive research pieces. He leverages his background in battery research to provide key insights into the chemistries, applications and markets for lithium-ion batteries.Prior to joining BNEF James completed a PhD at the University of Southampton. This work focused on lithium-oxygen batteries as next generation energy storage devices. He then went on to work as a research fellow at the University of Southampton for two years. James holds a BSc in Chemistry and a PhD in Electrochemistry.

Battery Technology Engineer
James McKinney is a battery technology engineer at BMW Group, based in the U.S. Technology Office in Mountain View.  His primary focus is on facilitating collaborations with companies, universities, and laboratories working on advanced battery technologies.  Prior to BMW, he spent time at multiple companies working in the battery materials industry. James has a BS and MS, both in Materials Science and Engineering.

Director, Energy Storage
With a decade of energy engineering, project management, and business development experience, Michael Liu serves as Director of BYD’s Energy Storage Systems (ESS) practice in North America. As an important intermediary in BYD’s global ESS practice, Liu bridges the technology supply and demand between North America and overseas. Before his promotion to Director, he held two other BYD posts as Regional Manager, and Business Development Manager. Prior to joining BYD in 2012, Liu served as Energy Engineer Southern California Edison’s Energy Efficiency program, where he was actively involved in 90+ Southern California regional projects. Liu received his Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University in 2009.

Project Manager, Energy Storage
Jason Zhang is a Project Manager of BYD America, Energy Storage team, MS in Electrical Engineering. Working in a fast-growing, slim team, Jason has led the delivery and maintenance of over 16 utility-scale projects, managed all aspects of the project delivery life cycle from initial business development to after-sales service. Established reliable relationships with customers and vendors. Also, Jason has managed the development of the new generation of C&I and containerized energy storage products, kept track of the industry trends, and provided feedback information for product line improvement. He lives in Los Angeles, California. After work he enjoys a life as a Photographer, Traveler and Foodie.

Associate Researcher, Power Storage, Batteries and Supercaps
María Martínez obtained her degree in Chemistry from the University of the Basque Country in 2010. She completed her PhD in Applied Chemistry and Polymeric Materials in 2015 at the University of the Basque Country (San Sebastian, Spain). Meanwhile, she did a stay of six months at the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials (USA) in 2014 under the supervision of Professor Joachim Kohn. After her PhD, María went on researching in Polymat research group at University of the Basque Country. In 2017 she joined the Solid Electrolyte Group in CIC Energigune, under the supervision of Professor Michel Armand. During this time, she did a stay in the Institute for Frontier Materials (IFM), Deakin University (Melbourne, Australia) as part of the research collaboration with the group of Professor Maria Forsyth. Her research interest is focused on polymer electrolytes for lithium metal batteries.

Research Scientist, Chemical Engineering
Nong Artrith obtained her PhD in Theoretical Chemistry from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, for the development of machine learning (ML) methods for atomistic simulations in chemistry and materials science. She was awarded a Faculty for the Future (FFTF) fellowship from Schlumberger Foundation for postdoctoral work at MIT, where she applied ML models to understand catalyst systems. Nong subsequently joined Gerbrand Ceder’s group at UC Berkeley as a postdoc and later associate specialist to develop ML models for amorphous electrode materials for Li-ion batteries. Currently, Nong is a research scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University, where she applies ML to the understanding of energy storage and conversion materials. In 2019, Nong was named a Scialog Fellow for Advanced Energy Storage.

CTO
Bob is an Energy Storage technology executive with experience in large corporations (ATL, CATL, Magna, Delphi, GM) and small entrepreneurial businesses (Tawas, Indy Power Systems, World Energy Labs). He recently received the title "National Distinguished Expert" from the Peoples Republic of China Government Talent 1000 Plan. Bob is currently CTO of Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited and President of Business Development Amperex Technology Limited in NingDe, Fujian Province, PRC. These two companies specialize in clean technology lithium ion battery systems used in electric vehicles and high efficiency storage systems. He one of the favored speakers on the xEV and ESS conference programs. In professional organizations he has held the Chairmanship of SAE International Battery Standards Steering Committee for 5 years (with 22 Committees reporting to him) and is President Elect for NAATBatt International. He also serves on Senator Lugar’s Advisory Board for Renewable Energy at IUPUI the Dean’s Executive Advisory Council at Ball State University and the National Fire Protection Agencies Board of Advisers. He holds a Master’s degree in Chemistry and has 38 years experience in battery technology. Bob was first ever front cover individual feature story for Batteries International and has feature articles on a regular basis.

President
Dr. Wozniak completed his undergraduate training at MIT and graduate work at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he stayed on as an Assistant Research Professor until 1995. For the past 25 years he has worked for Energizer Power Systems, Compaq/HP and Microsoft prior to forming his own consulting business in 2014. As the President of Energy Storage and Power Consulting, he works closely with key battery cell and pack manufacturers as well as Fortune 500 OEMs manufacturing everything from consumer electronics, EVs , ESS and battery backup systems. Dr. Wozniak’s focus has been on developing quality manufacturing practices and commercialization of promising battery technologies.

Owner and Founder, Cyclikal LLC
No bio available

Associate Professor
No bio available

Senior Technologist
Jody Leber is a Senior Technologist in Energy Storage at CSA Group and an accomplished International Compliance Professional with 29 years of experience in all aspects of Product Testing with the last 15 years dedicated to the Energy Storage sector. Prior to joining CSA Group, He was the Global Battery and Accumulator Technical Manager for a major Testing, Inspection and Certification Organization for 9 years. In addition, he is an experienced Subject Matter Expert in international regulatory affairs specifically focused in the renewable energy market. Jody's specialties also include Electromagnetic Interference, Electromagnetic Compatibility, Environmental Simulation and Product Safety along with extensive knowledge in all aspects of E & E laboratory management, operations and market expansion.

Professor of Physics and Atmospheric Science
Jeff Dahn is recognized as one of the pioneering developers of the lithium-ion battery that is now used worldwide in laptop computers and cell-phones.  Dahn's recent work has concentrated on increasing the energy density, improving the lifetime and lowering the cost of lithium ion batteries.  He is the author of over 640 refereed journal papers and co-inventor of 65 inventions with patents issued or filed. Jeff Dahn was born in Bridgeport, Conn. in 1957 and emigrated with his family to Nova Scotia, Canada in 1970.  He obtained his BSc in Physics from Dalhousie University (1978) and his PhD from the University of British Columbia in 1982.  Dahn then worked at the National Research Council of Canada (82-85) and at Moli Energy Limited (85-90) before taking up a faculty position in the Physics Department at Simon Fraser University in 1990.  He returned to Dalhousie University in 1996. Jeff Dahn has always interacted strongly with industry.  During his years at Simon Fraser University (90-96) he collaborated strongly with the R+D team at NEC/Moli Energy Canada (Now E-One/Moli Energy Canada).  Dr. Dahn took up the NSERC/3M Canada Industrial Research Chair in Materials for Advanced Batteries at Dalhousie University in 1996 and held that position until 2016.  In June 2016, Dr. Dahn began a 5-year research partnership with Tesla Motors/Energy as an NSERC/Tesla Canada Industrial Research Chair.  Jeff has received numerous awards including: International Battery Materials Association (IBA) Research Award (1995); Herzberg Medal, Canadian Association of Physicists (1996); ECS Battery Division Research Award (1996); Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2001);  Medal for Excellence in Teaching (2009) from the Canadian Assoc. of Physicists, The Rio-Tinto Alcan Award from the Canadian Institute of Chemistry (2010), the ECS Battery Division Technology Award (2011), the Yeager award from the International Battery Materials Association (2016) and the Inaugural Govenor General's Innovation Award (2016).

Tech Fellow, T&D
As one of the most innovative and rigorous development scientists, Mr.Leonard is brilliant and extremely knowledgeable in his areas of expertise (many). He has a pragmatic approach to ensure product meet customers' needs and have commercial importance. His accomplishments speak to his technical depth and excellence in chemistry and catalysis knowledge. Tech Fellow of Amandarry, Strategic Partner for Advanced NMC 811 Cathode Materials with Cham Battery.

Senior Manager
Bridget Deveney is a Senior R&D manager at Elkem in the Carbon division. She has more than 15 years of experience in the battery industry working leading technical projects on battery materials and cell manufacturing.

CEO
Malcolm McClure is the owner, CEO, and Head of Engineering at Energy Access, Inc., a supplier of battery charging and power management systems to companies worldwide. He has 35+ years experience in designing high-efficiency power systems, and has overseen all of the company's CEC validation efforts. Malcolm graduated from Northwestern University with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering. He has been published in a number of journals including EDN, The Journal of the American Chemical Society, Bulletin of the American Physical Society, and Advancements in Battery Charging. Malcolm also holds several patents in the areas of battery charging and gas gauging.

Director, Project Management
No bio available

Senior Technical Specialist
No bio available

Principal Battery Engineer
Lawrence Pan leads the Battery Engineering Team at Fitbit, which has developed solutions to power millions of smartwatches and trackers. Prior to this, he focused on advanced charging algorithms, battery diagnostics, novel electrode design, and use of nanomaterials for energy storage.

Business Development Manager
Daniel works with Fortune 500 companies on development of atomic layer deposition-enabled products for batteries and electronic components. He has over 10 years’ experience in the field and likes to garden, cook, travel, learn languages, play jazz trumpet, and drink tea in his spare time.

Department Head, Electrical Energy Storage
Electrical Engineer, 21 years of experience at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. PhD thesis in the field of modeling and development of control strategies for fuel cell systems. From 2005 to 2010 head of group “Off-grid power supply” with main focus in the field of modeling, simulation and development of control strategies for distributed power generations systems. From 2011 to 2016 head of department “PV off-grid solutions and battery system technology.” Since 2017 Head of department of Electrical Energy Storage. Work topics among others: Autonomous systems and mini-grids, decentralized grid connected PV battery systems, development of battery systems for stationary and automotive applications. Development and optimization of battery management systems, energy management systems as well as supervisory control strategies. Contact person for battery systems at Fraunhofer Battery Alliance. Lecturer at university of Freiburg for "energy storage" and “electromobility.”

CEO
Kostya is a seasoned executive with more than 15 years of experience in the global technology sector. He is the Chief Executive Officer of GBatteries, an advanced battery technology company, based in Ottawa, Canada. His focus is to deliver advanced battery technology while driving operational excellence. He has a Master of Applied Science in Aerospace Engineering from Carleton University. Prior to GBatteries, Kostya was the founder of several organizations including Wolna, a SatCom company and Smart Rotor Systems (SRS), a company that developed vibration and noise reduction technology for helicopters.

Director, Chemical and Materials Systems Laboratory
Mark Verbrugge started his GM career in 1986 with the GM Research Labs after receiving his doctorate in Chemical Engineering from the College of Chemistry at the University of California (Berkeley). In 1996, Mark was awarded a Sloan Fellowship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received an MBA. Mark directs the Chemical and Materials Systems Laboratory at GM R&D and has published and patented in topic areas associated with electroanalytical methods, polymer electrolytes, advanced batteries and supercapacitors, fuel cells, high-temperature air-to-fuel-ratio sensors, compound semiconductors, surface coatings, and structural materials. Mark is a Board Member of the United States Automotive Materials Partnership LLC, is the 2017 Chairperson for the United States Advanced Battery Consortium LLC, and is an adjunct professor for the Department of Physics, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Mark’s research efforts resulted in his receiving the Norman Hackerman Young Author Award and the Energy Technology Award from the Electrochemical Society as well as GM internal awards including the John M. Campbell Award for research accomplishments, twice the Charles L. McCuen Award for inventions substantially influencing GM products, and twice the Boss Kettering Award, the highest technical award given by GM. Mark received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Council for Automotive Research, and an R&D 100 Award in 2017. Mark is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Assistant Professor, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
No bio available

CTO, Co-Founder, Sila Nantechnologies; Professor
Gleb Yushin is a Co-Founder & CTO of Sila Nanotechnologies and serves as a Professor of Materials Science at Georgia Institute of Technology and the Editor-in-Chief for Materials Today. Gleb has co-authored over 170 peer-reviewed publications and over 100 patents. For his contributions to the development of energy storage materials, Gleb has received numerous awards and was recognized as one of the world’s most influential scientific minds by the Electrochemical Society. Gleb holds BS and MS degrees in Physics from Polytechnic Institute and a PhD in Materials Science from North Carolina State University.

Chief Scientist and Research Director
Avetok Harutyunyan is currently the Research Director and Chief Scientist at Honda Research Institute USA Inc. located in San Jose, CA. His responsibilities include development of strategy towards AI selective implementations by exploiting material science supported by machine learning as well as computer science.

President
Based in New York, Chris has been an independent analyst since 2009 with a focus on Energy Metals supply chains including lithium, cobalt, graphite, vanadium, and rare earths. His advisory work provides strategic insights to asset managers, banks, corporates and academia and has a specific focus on how disruptive trends in energy, strategic metals, and technology create opportunities. Before shifting focus to analysis of these trends, Chris gained twelve years of capital markets experience on both the buy side and sell side.

Rowe Family Endowed Chair Professor in Sustainable Energy; Professor, Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Leon L. Shaw is the Rowe Family Endowed Chair Professor for Sustainable Energy and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology. He is a leading scientist in nanomaterials synthesis, processing and microstructure control for energy storage and structural applications with more than 300 publications including over 210 archival refereed journal articles and 10 chapters for various encyclopedia and handbooks. His recent research has focused on nanomaterials synthesis and processing for energy storage, particularly in the areas of lithium-ion, sodium-ion, and redox flow batteries as well as hydrogen storage materials. Prof. Shaw is a Member of EU Academy of Science, a Member of Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, a Fellow of ASM International, and a Fellow of the World Academy of Materials and Manufacturing Engineering.

Lead Engineer
Naoki Matsumura is a senior battery technologist at Intel Corporation, responsible for new technology assessment, algorithm development and sourcing for mobile devices and datacenter. Prior to that, Naoki held battery research/development roles at Panasonic. Naoki earned his MS in Energy Science from Kyoto University and holds many patents.

Director
Kamal Shah is the director of platform architecture management at Intel with a focus on requirements management. He is also the chairman of Mobile PC Extended Battery Life Working Group, an industry organization focused on extending battery life of mobile PCs. He holds a MS in Computer Engineering from University of Texas at Austin and is an author of two granted patents.

Researcher
Guillaume Thenaisie received MSc degrees from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de St Etienne, Gardanne, France, and from universite de Provence, Marseille, France, in 2012, majoring in Microelectronics and computer science, and Nanoelectronics, respectively. He has received a PhD degree from Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 2020, majoring in battery management and nondestructive measurement. Since 2020, he has been with KAIST as a postdoc researcher. His research interest is to create a bridge between material science and chemistry knowledge, and with electronics and embedded systems for improved battery safety and reliability. Mr. Thenaisie is a member of the IEEE Power & Energy Society, and a member of the IEEE standard association.

Founding Director
Prof. Rachid Yazami, is a native of Fez, Morocco and a graduate of the Grenoble Institute of Technology (INPG) electrochemistry and materials science where he also received a PhD on graphite intercalation compounds for lithium battery application, and began his career and rose to research director at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in Grenoble, France. Yazami is the inventor involved in more than 140 patents related to battery technology, including on state of charge, state of health and state of safety of batteries together with ultra-fast charge technologies. He also invented the graphite anode in 1979 currently used in most commercial lithium-ion batteries, an over $30B/year business. Dr. Yazami co-authored over 250 articles including peers reviewed papers, and book chapters on batteries and battery materials and systems. A founder in 2007 of CFX battery, Inc., (Contour Energy Systems) a primary and rechargeable lithium and fluoride battery start-up company in Azusa, California, Yazami has also been a visiting associate in Materials Science and in Chemistry at Caltech (Pasadena, California) in collaboration with JPL/NASA for 10 years. He served as the President of the International Battery Association (IBA) and as International Scientific Board member of several lithium battery conferences and events. In 2010, Dr. Yazami joined the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU) where he held the Nanyang Visiting Professor in Materials Science position. Until 10/2018, he served as the Director of the Energy Storage programs with the Energy Research Institute (ERI@N). Current research areas cover lithium batteries and “Beyond Lithium” future battery technologies, including liquid anode alkali metal-air and fluoride ion batteries. He is also served as PI of battery research at the TUM Create Center of e-mobility, jointly managed by NTU and the Technological University of Munich.In 2011Yazami founded KVI PTE LTD a start-up company in Singapore dedicated to battery life and safety enhancement for mobile electronics, large energy storage and electric vehicles applications. KVI is a licensee of Caltech, CNRS and NTU patents invented by Yazami and his team on battery thermodynamics. The technology is currently endorsed by major mobile electronics, EV and battery manufacturers and R&D Centers. Applications include accurate assessments of state of charge, state of health and state of safety and ultrafast battery charging systems.In recognition of his pioneer work on the graphite anode in lithium ion batteries, Yazami received several scientific awards, including from NASA, NATO, IBA, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, the Hawaii Battery, the IEEE, the Draper Prize of the US National Academy of Engineering. He was a finalist of the Global Energy Award (Russia) and of the Marius Lavet Prize (France). In 2014 Yazami was decorated by HM the King of Morocco and is the recipient of the French Legion of Honor in 2016. Recently he received the “2018’ Takreem Award” in Science and Technology Innovation, considered the Arab Scientist of the Year Award.

Daniel M. Tellep Distinguished Professor of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley; Senior Faculty Scientist
Materials Science and Engineering and a Faculty Senior Scientist at LBNL. He uses computational and experimental methods to design novel materials for energy generation and storage, including lithium and sodium-ion battery chemistries, multi-valent intercalation, and solid-state batteries. He has published extensively in the fields of alloy theory, novel oxide design, energy storage, and machine learning. He is a co-founder of Computational Modeling Consultants, Pellion Technologies, and The Materials Project. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and The Arts. He is a Fellow of the Materials Research Society and the Metals, Minerals and Materials Society, and has received awards from the Electrochemical Society, the Materials Research Society, the Metals Minerals and Materials Society, and the International Battery Association.

Staff Scientist, Materials Sciences Division
Haegyeom Kim received a BSc degree (2009) from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in Hanyang University, a Master degree (2011) at graduate school of EEWS from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and a PhD degree (2015) on graphite derivatives for Li and Na rechargeable batteries at Seoul National University. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Gerbrand Ceder’s group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and he is now a staff scientist at Materials Sciences Division of LBNL. His current research interest lies in the design and development of novel electrode materials for Li, Na, and K ion batteries as well as the investigation on underlying energy storage mechanism in there. To date, he has published more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including 32 first-authored papers. According to Google Scholar, his papers have been cited over 7,000 times.

Director, Operations
Kevin Fok is Director, Operations for LG Chem in the Americas and leads the team in the delivery, project execution, and operations & maintenance of battery energy storage systems for the electric grid. He has over 22 years of sales, business development, marketing, engineering, and project management experience in renewable and alternative energy, including lithium-ion batteries, solar photovoltaics (PV), nickel-metal hydride batteries, fuel cells, and hydrogen storage. His customers have included the military, state governments, systems integrators, energy companies, and utilities. Mr. Fok has been a presenter and panelist at numerous conferences, as well as having moderator and session chair roles. Mr. Fok has been a presenter and panelist at numerous conferences, as well as having moderator and session chair roles. He has been active in education roles, including presenting tutorials, developing an alternative energy curriculum for a university, and being involved with major industry conferences as a member of educational committees and as an abstracts reviewer. He is regularly involved with industry organizations for the implementation of energy storage and is acknowledged in written publications. He is a Member of the Technical Committee for National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 855 - Standard for the Installation of Stationary Energy Storage Systems. He has advisory roles for several NFPA projects covering firefighter safety and sprinkler protection. Mr. Fok is a co-inventor of 13 US patents. He has Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees, both from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and has a Michigan Ross Distinguished Leader Executive Certificate from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Senior Global Commercial Manager, New Product and Technology Development
Marina Yakovleva is a Head of Research and a Senior Global Commercial Manager for New Product and Technology Development at Livent Corporation. Marina started her carrier in battery components industry with FMC Corporation in 1995. Marina has inventions in lithium-ion battery materials widely used commercially, including the Ti/Mg tailored cathode technology that has become the industry standard and is used in a vast majority of consumer electronics devices. Marina has over 70 patents granted in US and worldwide; over 20 patents pending US and worldwide. Today, her mission is to implement Livent’s new strategic inventions through industry and academia collaborations to enable high energy density storage devices. Marina serves as member-at-large of the ECS Battery Division and she is a member of the advisory board for the Battery500 consortium.

Head, Process Technology
No bio available

Principal Systems Engineer
Tobias Glossmann has more than 17 years of experience in advanced battery research and development at Daimler. He manages research projects, collaborations and technology evaluation with commercial and academic partners of Mercedes-Benz R&D North America. He holds an engineering diploma from Esslingen University of Applied Sciences in Electronics/Mechatronics, a Master of Science in Chemistry from Oakland University and he is working on a PhD in Biomedical Sciences. Since he was actively involved in a variety of issues that included high voltage system design, thermal management, battery controls, materials evaluation and system integration he has gained a lot of experience in topics from research to commercialization. Some of his current interests are interfaces and material properties in solid-state batteries, the use of computational methods for the interpretation of analytical data, redox-active organic materials and Li-sulfur batteries.

Area Sales & Marketing Manager
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.

Product Manager Electrochemistry
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.

Principal Battery Scientist
No bio available

Head, Market Research
No bio available

Research & Development Director
No bio available

Principal Member Technical Staff
No bio available

Aerospace Technologist
Dr. William Q. Walker received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from West Texas A&M University and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Houston.  William is employed by NASA Johnson Space Center where his career primarily focuses on the safe design and optimization of lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery assemblies for human spaceflight applications. Specifically, William focuses on the thermal management of Li-ion battery assemblies, battery safety in general, and the development of new calorimetric techniques for thermal runaway characterization. Most recently, Dr. Walker has been involved with and supported the development of Fractional Thermal Runaway Calorimetry (FTRC) techniques which provide the capability to discern the fraction of thermal runaway energy ejected away from the Li-ion cell versus that which remains with the cell. Recently recognized with a NASA Trailblazer award and with the RNASA Stellar Award for his early career contributions to Li-ion battery thermal analysis and calorimetry methods, Dr. Walker continues to be engaged in the academic and professional communities focused on battery safety.

Research Officer, Materials for Energy Technologies, Automotive & Surface Transportation Research
Alexis Laforgue is a research officer of the National Research Council of Canada. His work is mainly focused on the development of innovative materials, processes and devices for energy technologies. He obtained his PhD from the Université Paris-Est Créteil (France) on the development of conductive polymers for supercapacitor applications, then held different research positions at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Université de Montréal (Canada), working on polymer chemistry, electrochemistry and surface science. Since joining NRC in 2006, he has been working on various energy technologies including Li-ion batteries, graphene-based supercapacitors, solid polymer electrolytes for lithium metal batteries and solid-state Li-air cells. He is currently leading the activities related to pilot-scale battery manufacturing with a new facility recently inaugurated at NRC.

Scientist
Shriram Santhanagopalan received the BS degree in chemical and electrochemical engineering from the Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi, India, in 2002, and the PhD degree in chemical engineering from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA, in 2006.,He is a Senior Engineer and the Principal leading the battery safety work at the Transportation and Hydrogen Systems Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO, USA. He develops novel materials, tests methodology, and analytical tools to address the limitations of state-of-the-art batteries, and to optimize their performance and safety. He designs experimental studies at the materials, component, and pack levels to validate electrochemical control strategies. He directs related energy storage projects for the Vehicle Technologies Program. Before joining NREL, he was a Senior Scientist at Celgard, LLC, Charlotte, NC, USA, where he was responsible for evaluating the compatibility of a variety of polymers in the battery environment, and evaluating new Li-2 components for automotive batteries. He also initiated and guided the development of new products for high-capacity cells. He has authored over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and eight book chapters. He actively participates in developing standards for the battery industry.

Senior Engineer, Energy Storage
Kandler Smith (M’07) received the PhD in mechanical engineering from Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA, in electrochemical modeling and control of Li-ion batteries.,He is a Senior Scientist and Principal Investigator with the Transportation and Hydrogen Systems Center, Energy Storage Group at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, USA. He recently coauthored a textbook on design and analysis of large Li-ion battery systems. His research interests include Li-ion battery lifetime prediction, multiphysics modeling, and computational design. (Based on document published on 31 March 2019).

Research Officer
Dean MacNeil is currently a research scientist at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). He is currently leading a team in battery safety and performance studies for a number of private and public organizations. Prior to the NRC, he held positions as an industrial research chair at the University of Montreal and research scientist at Gillette/Duracell. Dr. MacNeil received his PhD "Lithium-ion battery reactions at elevated temperatures" in 2001 from Dalhousie University under the supervision of Dr. Jeff Dahn.

CEO
Colin Wessells is the founding CEO at Natron Energy, which he co-founded in 2012. At Natron, he has raised over $50 million in equity investments and federal and state awards. For the past several years he has led Natron’s customer engagement in the data center and vehicle electrification industries. He also led the development of Natron’s novel Prussian blue electrode sodium-ion battery chemistry. He is an inventor of fourteen issued patents, has published nineteen peer-reviewed papers, and holds a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

Product Director
Martin has over 20 years of experience developing automated test systems for evaluating power electronics and battery systems. As the Product Director at NH Research (NHR), Martin is responsible for the technical development and launch of new, industry-driven hardware and software test solutions. Previously, he worked as a Principal Design Engineer for high-tech companies including Vocollect, Marconi Communications, and Telxon.

Research Professor; Principal
Dr. K.M. Abraham is the principal consultant of E-KEM Sciences (www.e-kemsciences.com) and Research Professor at Northeastern University. After receiving his PhD degree in chemistry from Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, K.M spent a significant part of his professional career at EIC Laboratories in Norwood, Massachusetts. Among his many contributions to battery technology include the demonstration of the first practical rechargeable Li battery with long cycle life, development of rechargeable sodium ion batteries for moderate temperature applications, pioneering studies leading to the development of highly conductive gel polymer electrolytes and Li-ion polymer batteries, invention of redox shuttle reagents for overcharge protection of Li-ion batteries, and the invention of the non-aqueous rechargeable Li-air battery. K.M. Abraham is the recipient of the Electrochemical Society Battery Research Award, The NASA Group Achievement Award for the Rechargeable Lithium Battery Team, and the IBA Yeager Award. He has been elected Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry. He served as the Chair of the Battery Division and on the Board of Directors of the Electrochemical Society from 2006 to 2008. Additional information can be obtained from the website, www.e-kemsciences.com.

Founder and President, Volexion, Inc.; Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
Mark C. Hersam is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Director of the Materials Research Center at Northwestern University. He also holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Chemistry, Applied Physics, Medicine, and Electrical Engineering. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1996, MPhil in Physics from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1997, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from UIUC in 2000. His research interests include nanomaterials, nanomanufacturing, scanning probe microscopy, nanoelectronic devices, and renewable energy. Dr. Hersam has received several honors including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, TMS Robert Lansing Hardy Award, AVS Peter Mark Award, MRS Outstanding Young Investigator, US Science Envoy, MacArthur Fellowship, and eight Teacher of the Year Awards. An elected member of the National Academy of Inventors, Dr. Hersam has founded two companies, NanoIntegris and Volexion, which are commercial suppliers of nanoelectronic and battery materials, respectively. Dr. Hersam is a Fellow of MRS, AVS, APS, AAAS, SPIE, and IEEE, and also serves as an Associate Editor of ACS Nano.

Group Leader, Energy and Transportation Science Division
Dr. Ilias Belharouak is a Distinguished Scientist and the Leader of the Battery Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing Group in the Energy and Transportation Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Tennessee. Dr. Belharouak also serves as a Professor of the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Before joining ORNL, he was a Research Director and the Founding Chief Scientist of the Electrochemical Energy Storage Center in Qatar Foundation. He was a Material Scientist and Battery Expert in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Illinois. Dr. Belharouak is currently an Editor of the Elsevier’s Journal of Power Sources. He was recognized with several awards including R&D-100 innovation awards and topical society awards. Dr. Belharouak authored more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, 30 US Patents and Applications, 5 books, and holds an h-index of 55.

Research Scientist
Dr. Jianlin Li is a Senior R&D Staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and University of Tennessee Bredesen Center Adjunct Faculty Member). His research interest lies in materials synthesis, processing and characterization, electrode engineering, and manufacturing for energy storage and conversion. Dr. Li received his BS in Materials Chemistry and his MS in Materials Science from University of Science and Technology of China in 2001 and 2004, respectively, and his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida in 2009. He is a recipient of several prestigious awards including 2 R&D 100 award and 1 Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) award.  He has received 6 issued patents with another 8 pending applications, and authored >100 refereed journal articles and 3 book chapters.

President
Founder and President of OnTo Technology LLC (2002 - present): ·Served LGChem/Apple battery recall of 2004-2006. ·Awarded highly competitive SBIR research grants from NSF, DOE, EPA and ONAMI. ·Contract Research for clientele including Tesla Motors, Vehicle Recycling Partnership, Bend Research Inc., Central Oregon Community College, and Argonne National Laboratory. ·Postdoctoral Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with Dr. John B. Kerr (1998-2000), developed diagnostics for lithium-ion batteries, electrolyte reactivity and life-limitations in lithium-ion batteries, non-flammable electrolytes, transference number measurements in polymer electrolytes.·Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Willamette University (1995-97) ·Oregon State University PhD Thesis “Synthesis and Characterization of Polymer Electrolytes and Related Nanocomposites”, Professor Michael M. Lerner, research advisor. 

Head, Battery Development and Integration
Mark holds a first-class Masters degree and a PhD in Electronic Engineering, is a Chartered Engineer and a fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. He worked at Nanometrics, managing the development of several materials characterisation and metrology tools for the semiconductor industry, from inception through to full production. He later worked at Research Machines in the roles of New Product Introduction Manager and Programme Manager. He joined OXIS Energy in January 2012 as Head of Business Development, commercialising the game-changing Lithium Sulfur technology and has been Head of Battery Development and Integration since 2016.

Dr. Lu is a materials scientist and the team leader of Battery Materials Research team in Battery Materials and Systems group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Dr. Lu’s research interest is materials and electrolyte development for energy storage as well as in-depth mechanism analysis through various in-situ/ex-situ techniques. Currently, he is focusing on the development of high energy lithium-sulfur and solid batteries including new materials, fundamental understanding, and pouch cell design and demonstration. Dr. Lu has more than 40 papers published in peer-reviewed professional journals and holds 6 granted and pending U.S. Patents.

Vice President, Battery Technology
Celina Mikolajczak, is currently Vice President, Battery Technology at Panasonic Energy of North Americaa. Previously she was senior manager for battery pack development at Tesla and was with Uber to help the ride-hail company’s “flying car” project get off the ground. For six years, Mikolajczak served as senior manager and technical lead for battery technology, cell quality, and materials analysis. She worked with Tesla’s suppliers, tested the car company’s lithium-ion batteries for long-term use, oversaw quality assurance, and conducted “failure analysis” to drive battery cell production and design improvements. In other words, Mikolajczak was in charge of making sure the most crucial component in Tesla’s entire assembly line was top of the line.

Co-Leader, Battery Platform Team
Jack Guo has been with Philips for 21 years, focused on innovation, product research and development. His work has spanned from medical device and software solution development, to innovation collaboration, data and platform integration, and lifecycle management. Jack has brought multiple products from concept to markets in his career in medical device industry. He is currently co-leading the Battery Platform Team within Philips that provides battery realization platform and integrated solutions to medical applications.

Global Technical Manager, Battery Cell Technologies
Zhilian Zhou is the global technical manager of battery cell technologies within PPG’s Mobility business.  Her group develops coating technology used in the manufacture of lithium-ion battery electrodes for automotive and mobility-related applications. Zhilian holds a PhD in chemistry from University of North Carolina and a MS in chemical engineering from University of Minnesota. Throughout her career, entrepreneurial spirit has led her to conduct growth-related research and launch many new and innovated products.

CEO
Tom has over 30 years of engineering, operations and general management experience at small and large companies. Prior to helping launch Primus, he was a VP/GM at semiconductor equipment manufacturer Applied Materials responsible for a $500 million business. He holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, is a co-inventor on numerous patents, and a frequent speaker at energy conferences. Tom serves on the Special Olympics Northern California board of directors.

Professor
Craig B. Arnold is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and the director of the Princeton Institute for Science and Technology of Materials. His research ranges from basic science to applied technology aimed at developing a deeper understanding of fundamental materials synthesis and processing with interests in energy storage systems, laser materials processing and advanced optics. He earned his PhD in condensed-matter physics from Harvard University, and was an NRC post-doctoral fellow prior to joining the faculty at Princeton. He is a winner of an NSF Career award and ONR Young investigator award and more recently has won a number of industrial awards including an R&D 100 award and an SPIE PRISM award for technology developed in his research group. This past year he was elected fellow of OSA and SPIE.

Vice Chairman of the Board
A world renowned inventor, Dr Yuan Gao has over 25 years of experience in the complete supply chain of lithium-ion battery industry, from lithium extraction to batteries. One of his inventions, the Ti/Mg technology, enables high voltage lithium-ion batteries and is being practiced today in a vast majority of lithium-ion batteries for small portable electronics such as smart phones and tablets. Dr Yuan Gao joined Pulead Technology in May 2014 and had served as its President and CEO until Sept 2019 and currently he is Vice Chairman of the board. Concurrently he is serving on the Board of Directors of Lithium Americas Corporation. Previously Dr Gao served as a Corporate Vice President at Molycorp (USA), and a Global Marketing Director and Technology Manager, as well as other management positions at FMC Corporation (USA). Dr Gao received his BSc from the University of Science and Technology of China, and his PhD in Physics from the University of British Columbia in Canada. He received his postdoc training from Professor Jeff Dahn’s lab at Simon Fraser University. He has also received Executive Education from The Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania in the USA.

Technical Director, Energy Group
Dr. Schrooten is Technical Director at Pyrotek, a US-based, global technology company and leads the technical aspects of Pyrotek’s Battery Material business.  Jeremy has 20 years of technical and business leadership experience with a diverse set of companies including United Technologies, Angstrom Power, and Société Bic S.A.

Clark and Crossan Chair Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering
Professor Nikhil Koratkar received his BTech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 1995. He received both his Master’s (1998) and PhD (2000) from the University of Maryland, College Park. His research is focused on the synthesis, characterization, and application of nanoscale material systems. Professor Koratkar is a winner of the NSF CAREER Award (2003), the Electrochemical Society's SES Young investigator Award (2009), the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award (2015) and the IIT-Bombay Distinguished Alumnus Award (2019). In 2016, Koratkar was elected a Fellow of the ASME. In 2018, Clarivate Analytics named him in their highly cited researchers list (top 1% by citations). Koratkar serves as an Editor of CARBON (Elsevier). He also serves as a board member and advisor to two start-up companies aimed at commercializing next-generation energy storage solutions.

Sales & Marketing
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.

Program Lead, Energy Storage Project Group
Daniel Borneo is an Engineering Program/Project Lead at Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) where he leads a projects team that is part of Sandia’s Grid-Tied Electrical Energy Storage Program. The main emphasis of Dan’s work is to collaborate with utilities, industry partners, academia, and State Energy offices to develop Energy Storage (ES) projects and bring innovative electrical energy storage technologies to commercialization. He also specializes in the commissioning of ES systems and does work both Nationally and Internationally. Dan earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico, focusing on power and controls. He holds a professional engineering license in the state of New Mexico.

Principal Member Technical Staff
Dr. Joshua Lamb is currently a Senior Member of the Technical Staff with the Advanced Power Sources R&D organization at Sandia National Laboratories. He primarily works as part of the Battery Safety and Abuse Testing Laboratory (BATLab) team. The team focuses on the development of inherently safe lithium-ion batteries by understanding the consequences and mechanisms of failure, developing cradle-to-grave battery testing, and developing new materials for use in battery systems. Joshua earned his PhD in Metallurgical Engineering in 2008 and his BS in Chemical Engineering in 2002 from the University of Nevada. Since joining Sandia in 2011, Joshua’s research interests include advanced techniques for determining the stability of lithium-ion batteries and the development of advanced battery abuse and safety tests.

Principal Battery Engineer
Chia-Ying is currently the Principal Battery Engineer from SharkNinja in charge of Li-ion battery integration and strategic planning. With a PhD degree in Chemical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Economics, he combined both backgrounds to help Shark deliver multiple handheld, upright, and robotic vacuum products powered by Li-ion batteries. Chia-Ying also worked at companies producing batteries for electric vehicles, medical devices, and energy storage applications. He spent more than a decade in different battery development sectors from material R&D, battery design, prototype validation, failure analysis, toward large-scale manufacturing. He holds several US patents in battery designs and publications in peer reviewed articles including the Science Journal. Chia-Ying lives in Cambridge, MA.

President
Shmuel De-Leon, Founder and CEO of Shmuel De-Leon Energy, Ltd. Shmuel is a leading international expert in the business of energy storage. Prior to founding the company, Shmuel held for over 21 years various positions as an energy storage, electronic engineering, and quality control team manager. Shmuel holds a BSc in mechanical engineering from Tel Aviv University and an MBA in quality control and reliability engineering from the Technion Institute in Haifa as well as an Electronic Technician's diploma.

Chairman of the Board
Michael Fetcenko became Executive Chairman for Sion Power in April 2019 after retiring from BASF after 38 years. He was President of Ovonic Battery Company, the inventor of NiMH batteries, when acquired by BASF in 2012. He became Managing Director of BASF Battery Materials, North America before taking on Director of Global Licensing responsibilities. He is an inventor with over 70 patents and 100 publications in the NiMH and Li-Ion field. He is an expert in patents and licensing, with over 40 NiMH licenses and leading the successful Argonne National Laboratory NCM patent enforcement and licensing effort which resulted in 14 licenses and sub-licenses. He has led R&D, scale-up and commercialization and had P&L responsibilities. His inventions are used in all NiMH batteries for consumer, stationary, and hybrid vehicle applications such as the iconic Toyota Prius with over 10 million vehicles on the road. He has served on the Board of Directors and Technical Steering Committee for Sion Power for 5 years, a leader in advanced ultra-high energy Lithium battery systems including protected metallic lithium anodes for Li-Ion batteries. He became Chairman and then Executive Chairman in 2019.

CTO
Dr. Oladeji earned Physics MS (1998) and PhD (1999) from the University of Central Florida. He earned a Physics MS (1990) and a Physics BS (1987) from the University of Ilorin in Nigeria. He has many years of experience working for small technology start-ups and large technology corporations. These include Sisom Thin Films (Orlando), Planar Energy (Orlando), Solmax Technologies (Orlando), ATMEL Corp. (Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK), Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Singapore), Lucent Technologies (Bell Labs)/Agere (Orlando). He also served as an assistant Lecturer at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. He was a 1992 Fulbright Scholar, a 1997 Nasa Tech Brief award for technical innovation winner. He was a principal investigator of the ARPA-E BEEST program for the development of large format solid-state batteries (2010 to 2012). He holds 16 issued USA patents.

Staff Engineer
Dr. Bapi Surampudi has been active in control system development for automotive hybrid powertrains for the last 26 years. He has been managing the Energy Storage System Evaluation and Safety or EssEs Consortium at Southwest Research Institute for the last eight years. He also manages battery modeling activities for simulating performance, life and safety and conducts xEV benchmarking which includes in-situ instrumentation and vehicle testing.

CEO
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.

Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
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).

Associate Professor, Principal Investigator, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Evan Reed is a faculty member in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He received a BS in applied physics from Caltech (1998) and PhD in physics from MIT (2003). In 2004, he was an E. O. Lawrence Fellow and staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before moving to Stanford in 2010. Evan Reed’s recent work focuses on theory and modeling of 2D materials, statistical learning for chemical and energy storage applications, structural phase changes, and high-pressure shock wave compression.

Distinguished Professor
Michael Stanley Whittingham, (born December 1941, Nottingham, England) is a British-born American chemist who won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in developing lithium-ion batteries. He shared the prize with American chemist John Goodenough and Japanese chemist Yoshino Akira. Dr. Whittingham received his bachelor’s degree (1964), a master’s degree (1967), and a doctorate (1968) in chemistry from the University of Oxford. He was a research associate at Stanford University from 1968 to 1972. He then joined Exxon Research and Development Company in Linden, New Jersey, and rose to division manager. During his years at Exxon, he studied titanium disulfide and its superconductive properties. Titanium disulfide has a layered structure, and Whittingham used intercalation—that is, inserting atoms or molecules between the layers—to create materials with new properties. He created the first lithium-ion battery in 1976 with metallic lithium at the anode and titanium disulfide intercalated with lithium ions at the cathode. The battery had an electromotive force of 2.5 volts. In 1984, he became director of physical sciences at Schlumberger-Doll Research in Ridgefield, Connecticut, a company focused on developing technology for the petroleum industry. He then joined Binghamton University in New York in 1988 as a professor of chemistry and materials sciences and engineering.

Head of Algorithm Development, Battery Management Systems
Yevgen Barsukov is the head of the algorithm development in the battery management group at Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI). By applying leading theoretical methods of battery analysis, Yevgen is advancing battery fuel-gauging, health and safety technology used in notebooks, mobile-phones, PDAs and other portable devices. Prior to joining TI, his research was focused on Impedance Spectroscopy based testing and modeling of batteries. He co-authored books on impedance spectroscopy and on battery power management, multiple patents and journal publications and has presented in numerous international conferences. He was recently elected TI Fellow. Barsukov earned a MsC degree in Organic Chemistry at Kiev National University in 1993 and a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Kiel Christian-Albrecht University in 1996.

Vice President
No bio available

Senior Manager, Battery Cell Application Engineering Department
Graduate Tokyo Science University in 1982. Experienced development and engineering for rechargeable batteries (Ni-Cd, Ni-MH and LIB) in Furukawa, Sanyo and Toshiba. Currently senior manager for automotive application in Toshiba SCiB division.

Battery Systems Consultant
Mr. Konecky brings over 20 years of xEV experience to his work, having worked on multiple complex designs for battery system development, charging system integration, and high-voltage powertrain integration. He is skilled in new product design and development, product testing, product safety, integration of multiple subsystems for vehicles, new product launches and has expanded his skillset beyond batteries into power electronics. His experience in batteries includes multiple technologies (Li-Ion, NiMH, UltraCapacitors, Lead-Acid).

President
James (Jim) Powell has been an international Dangerous Goods trainer for over 30 years. He currently serves as a delegate to the United Nations in Geneva on behalf of the Dangerous Goods Training industry, and he has authored numerous papers, and products on lithium battery transport. A certified Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor (DGSA) in Europe he has taught classes worldwide and the company he heads trains over 5,000 people each year in safe and efficient Dangerous Goods Transportation.

Business Development Manager - Global Strategy
Global technical and business leader for UL-based in Northbrook, IL; Software and Functional Safety Certification Engineering Technical Expert (Regional Leader Reviewer/RLR) (UL 1998, UL 991, UL 60730-1, IEC 61508, ISO 13849-1, ISO 26262, and others); 15+ years in application and embedded software development, along with systems engineering and cybersecurity; Graduate of University of Pittsburgh (MS) in Electrical &Computer Engineering - specialized in embedded systems, software and control systems

Research Director
Dr. Jeevarajan is the Research Director for Electrochemical Safety at Underwriters Laboratories inc. She has worked in the area of battery safety for more than 22 years and serves on several standards committees for battery safety.

Professor
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.

Associate Professor
Chunmei Ban joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Colorado Boulder in August 2019 as an associate professor. Previously, Ban was a Senior Scientist (V) in the Materials and Chemical Science and Technology Directorate at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Ban has more than 10 years of experience working at NREL on developing next-generation, high-energy electrochemical materials including silicon, metal oxides and phosphates cathodes, multivalent anodes and organic radical materials. Her research on the surface-modification techniques has been successfully applied for stabilizing the interfacial chemistry of materials and has been granted multiple patents. Since 2010, Ban has been a principal investigator and has led DOE-awarded projects in high-energy cathodes, intermetallic anodes and direct recycling process for battery materials. Ban received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Electrochemistry from Tianjin University, China and holds a PhD in Chemistry from the State University of New York at Binghamton, supervised by Professor M Stanley Whittingham.

Professor
Professor Plett received his MSE.E. and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1992 and 1998, respectively. He is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. His research focuses on control-systems theory as applied to the management of high-capacity battery systems, such as found in hybrid and electric vehicles. Current research efforts include: physics-based reduced-order modeling of ideal lithium-ion dynamics; system identification of physics-based model parameters using only current-voltage input-output data; physics-based reduced-order modeling of degradation mechanisms in electrochemical cells; estimation of cell internal state and degradation state; state-of-charge, state-of-health and state-of-life estimation; power and energy prediction; and battery pack fast charging.

Assistant Professor
Professor Trimboli’s research focuses on development of control strategies for the management of high-capacity battery systems such as found in electric vehicles. He is currently UCCS principal investigator (PI) of a multi-year program with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) headed by Utah State University where he leads a team investigating the application of model-predictive control to improve the performance and extend the lifetime of lithium ion battery cells. He is also co-PI of an on-going battery modeling and control project with a major automotive company.

Associate Professor
Dr. Liu joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2013. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Iowa State University of Science and Technology where he developed new theoretical models to predict both the electrochemical performance and the reliability of solid oxide fuel cells. While at Iowa State, Dr. Liu received the University Graduate Student Teaching Excellence Award, as well as the Iowa State Graduate Student Research Excellence Award. In 2011 he was named one of 7 Iowa State graduate student Wakonse Fellows, an honor given in recognition of being “models for the (national) community of teachers/scholars.” Dr. Liu also has industrial experience at General Motors and The Stanley Works. Most recently, Dr. Liu served as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where he investigated degradation mechanisms leading to the failure of lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Liu has co-authored 8 refereed journal articles, as well as numerous conference papers and technical reports.

Professor
Vikas Tomar earned his bachelor's degree from the National Institute of Technology (India) and his master's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and the University of Stuttgart (Germany). He received his PhD degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He comes to Purdue from the University of Notre Dame, where he was an assistant professor.

Research Engineer
Dr. Marr is a research engineer at the University of Texas at Austin. His research areas include fire and thermal safety of batteries and battery fire forensic methods. Dr. Marr has expertise in a wide range of experimental and analytical techniques and has developed custom tools and techniques to analyze and assess fire and explosion hazards encountered in various industries, including batteries. Dr. Marr has authored or co-authored several publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and is a co-author of a book chapter on vapor cloud explosions in the SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering.

Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dr. Hamid Zareipour received his PhD degree from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in 2006. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary in Canada. Dr. Zareipour’s research is focused on operation and planning of electrical power systems considering various sources of uncertainty. In particular, he has published several papers on operation and planning of grid-connected large energy storage facilities. He is a senior member of the IEEE, where he has served as a volunteer in various positions within the Power and Energy Society (PES), including chairing the PES working group on business models for energy storage systems.

Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Xin is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCI. He is an expert on studying structure-property relationships for a range of battery materials. His in-depth diagnostic work has helped enable the development of several battery materials. His work on battery materials has been selected as a 2014 Top-10 Scientific Achievement by Brookhaven Lab. His research has resulted in more than 190 peer-reviewed publications and 1 patent. He has coauthored 18 publications in Science/Nature sister journals (corresponding author on 6).

Adjunct Faculty, College of Business and Economics
Professor of Information Systems and Business Management at California State University (CSULA). Dr. Sultan holds a PhD in Information Systems and Technology from Claremont Graduate University. She is a certified professional in Supply Management with experience in account product management, operations, and automated system projects development. Prior to her current role, Dr. Sultan served as a Senior Analyst at Southern California Edison, an Account Product Manager at the Walt Disney Studios. Her publications and research focus on energy informatics and the digital transformation within supply chains.

Materials Engineer, Electrochemistry Branch
Dr. Marshall Schroeder received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Maryland in 2015 under the tutelage of Dr. Gary Rubloff. Following his graduate studies on Li-O2 batteries, he began working as a Materials Science Engineer with Dr. Kang Xu at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. At ARL, his work has focused on design, synthesis, purification and testing of novel electrolyte salts, solvents and additives for stabilization of high voltage non-aqueous (~5V) and aqueous (~4V) cell chemistries, with a focus on studying the impact of solvent-ion interactions in bulk electrolyte and at electrode/electrolyte interfaces on cell performance. In addition to internal ARL efforts, his work is actively contributing to multiple U.S. DoE-funded energy storage projects (JCESR 2.0, Battery500, Co-free Initiative, Low Temperature Electrolytes, etc.)

Technology Development Manager
Samm Gillard is a technical project manager for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO), which leads research and development projects aimed to advance low cost, secure, and clean energy technologies for transportation. Within VTO, he manages several projects for the Battery R&D team. His areas of responsibility include lithium ion battery recycling, extreme fast charging, behind the meter storage for extreme fast charging, battery testing activities, SBIR/STTR projects related to batteries for the office, and serves as a technical advisor to the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium. Prior to DOE, he worked in battery design and supply chain for the Department of Defense, worked for the U.S. Patent and Trademark office as a patent examiner, and served in the military. He has a degree in Materials Science from the University of Maryland.

Senior Research Engineer
Brett M. Huhman received the BS and MS degrees from the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 2003 and 2006, respectively, and a PhD from Virginia Tech in 2017, all in electrical engineering. In 2007, he joined the Pulsed Power Physics Branch of the Plasma Physics Division at NRL, in the Electromagnetic Launcher and Advanced Systems Section. He has published nearly 100 conference and refereed journal articles in a variety of venues and topics as first and secondary author. In January 2011 he received his Professional Engineer License in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, and is registered in the District of Columbia. He received the Award for Group Achievement for his work on the railgun program in 2011 and 2019.

CEO and Co-Founder
Dr. Tal Sholklapper has an extensive record of success as a cleantech engineer and entrepreneur. Prior to founding Voltaiq, he worked as the lead engineer on a DOE ARPA-E funded project at the CUNY Energy Institute, developing an ultra low-cost grid-scale battery. Before joining CUNY, Dr. Sholklapper co-founded Point Source Power, a low cost fuel-cell startup based on technology he developed while at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley, where he also did his graduate work in Materials Science and Engineering. As a Materials Postdoctoral Fellow at LBNL, he successfully led the transfer of lab-scale technology to industry partners.

Chief Scientific Officer, Technology
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.

General Manager, Industrial Technology Unit
Sachiya Inagaki has been working with Yano Research Institute since August 2000. Experienced a lot of industry fields such as Laser, Optical lens, some electronics devices, and so on. Also, conducted some consulting service such as setting up a business plan, strategy to enter a market based on an experienced market research. Since 2009, he has been focusing primarily on market research for xEVs, LiB cells and it's materials. Since August 2011, he had been in a position of General Manager of Seoul branch office for three years and he has been in a position of Senior Executive Manager of Industrial Technology Unit at headquarter in Tokyo, Japan. He has acquired MBA from Tsukuba University in 2007.