演讲者

William has been involved in the metals markets since 1986, he runs the research for Fastmarkets battery metals and oversees base and precious metals research. Fastmarkets as a Price Reporting Agency (PRA) provides price discovery on the battery raw materials and Fastmarkets Research aims to provide a clear and focused understanding of the metals markets. Prior to working for Fastmarkets, William worked with Rudolf Wolff & Co Ltd, which was one of the founding members of the London Metal Exchange, where he gained broad insight into all aspects of the metals markets, working in their London, New York and Tokyo offices.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Philipp Adelhelm is a professor for physical chemistry at Humboldt-University Berlin. His current main interest is research on sustainable batteries. After studying materials science at the University of Stuttgart, he moved to the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam (department of Professor Antionetti / Smarsly, 2005-2007) for his doctoral project. This was followed by a 2-year postdoctoral stay at the University of Utrecht (Professor de Jongh) and then a position as a junior research group leader at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (Professor Janek, 2009-2015). From 2015-2019 he was a professor at the Institute for Technical Chemistry and Environmental Chemistry at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. He has been a professor at the Institute for Chemistry at Humboldt-University since 2019, and heads a joint research group on operando battery analysis at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin (HZB).

• TUT1: Sodium-ion Batteries (instructor will be presenting virtually)

Kojo Ako-Asare, Managing Director, is a member of Decarbonization Partners, a joint venture between BlackRock and Temasek that invests in innovative businesses focused on decarbonization solutions that accelerate global efforts towards realizing a healthier planet. He joined Decarbonization Partners in 2022. Kojo has over two decades of transaction experience, including: principal investing, project finance, capital raising, M&A, and real estate development. Prior to joining Decarbonization Partners, Kojo was a Partner at Emerson Collective Ventures (a multi-stage venture firm) where he co-led the organization's Climate Tech investments.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Shaheem Ali serves as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of RecycLiCo Battery Materials, where his profound expertise in Capital Markets and his rich industry experience are instrumental. Renowned for his exceptional operations management skills and financial insight, Shaheem possesses a fervent passion for circular economy practices. Under his visionary leadership, RecycLiCo is at the forefront of innovation in battery material recycling, actively forging a path toward a more sustainable and environmentally-responsible future.

• Battery Recycling

Howard Alt is CEO of Micantis drawing on more than 20 years of experience in software and systems. Over his career he has worked in businesses from startups to Fortune 500 as a software engineer, QA engineer, engineering manager, product manager, chief technologist, entrepreneur and CEO. He has drawn on this deep well of experience to help companies bring order to the chaos of battery testing.

• Battery Safety

Mr. Anstey is the CEO/Founder of GDI. He has over a decade of experience as an entrepreneur, globally commercializing technologies in energy storage and advanced materials. He is a co-inventor on >15 patent filings, and 7 issued patents. He works on technologies that fight climate change, and focuses on the intersection between manufacturing, strategy, and business development. Mr. Anstey is a proponent of open innovation and accelerating technology development through partnerships. 

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Rakan is a senior engineer at Koura (an Orbia Business). He currently leads technology and product development of graphite anode materials at Koura. Prior to that, he was a scientist at Boston Metal, developing and scaling up processes for valuable metals extraction from industrial waste through molten oxide electrolysis. Rakan holds a PhD in Materials Science from the University of Rochester.

• Battery Recycling

Mahalingam Balasubramanian is a Distinguished Scientist and Group Leader of the Emerging and Solid-State Batteries Group in the Electrification and Energy Infrastructures Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He currently directs a team of researchers working on both fundamental and applied aspects of Energy Storage and Conversion. He also manages ORNL’s Grid-scale Energy Storage Program. He received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Amanda Bamberger is a sustainability and impact focused investor working in early to growth stage venture capital. Amanda is a VP at Ecosystem Integrity Fund, a firm that has been investing in the renewable and cleantech sector for over a decade. Prior to EIF, Amanda worked for a seed-stage venture firm brokering technologies to frontier and emerging markets. She has an undergraduate degree in Physics, and a Masters of Science in Sustainable Engineering from Villanova University. Amanda brings together technical and business acumen to invest in and support startups that enable renewable and resilient energy systems.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

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

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Recycling
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Yevgen Barsukov is the Algorithm Fellow in the Battery Management group at Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI). By applying leading theoretical methods of battery analysis, Barsukov 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 battery power management, in journal publications, has multiple patents, and has presented at numerous international conferences. He was recently elected TI Fellow. Barsukov earned a Ms.C. degree in Organic Chemistry at Kiev National University in 1993, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Kiel Christian-Albrecht University in 1996.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Roger Basu is the CTO & Co-Founder of Coreshell, an advanced battery materials company focused on developing metallurgical Silicon in Li-ion batteries. Prior to founding Coreshell, Roger worked in the electrochromic and thin-film solar industries, where he advanced numerous technologies from concept to production. Roger has over two decades of experience in nanotechnology, electrochemistry and thin-film materials science. Roger holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chemistry & Materials Science from UC-Berkeley.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Eugene Beh is the CEO of Quino Energy. Prior to co-founding Quino in 2021, Eugene was a Member of Research Staff at Xerox PARC, where he invented and commercialized a redox flow desalination technology platform, leading him to become PARC’s Most Prolific Inventor in 2020 and 2021. Prior to PARC, Eugene was a postdoctoral fellow working on aqueous organic flow batteries with Professor Mike Aziz and Professor Roy Gordon at Harvard University. He earned a PhD in Chemistry from Stanford, an AM in Chemistry from Harvard, and an AB in Chemistry and Physics summa cum laude from Harvard. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a recipient of a Stanford Graduate Fellowship. Growing up in Singapore, he won the National Science Talent Search and received two Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors’ Awards. Eugene loves to travel and has lived widely in Singapore, Japan, Poland, Switzerland, and the United States. He is multilingual and is a space weather enthusiast.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Mark has 28 years of experience in project design and implementation. He has participated in many projects around the world within the Battery Materials, Lithium, Nickel, Copper, Cobalt, Rare Earth, PGM, and Uranium space. His involvement stems from research & development, to process design and project execution/implementation, including commissioning coordination and execution. Mark has worked with many clients in the Lithium Ion Battery Value Chain including GM, POSCO, VW, LG ES, Nano One, NOVONIX, Li Cycle, Mosaic, ERAMET, CTR, Altilium, Aleon, BMI, and Forge Nano. His predominant roles are process consultant, study manager and project sponsor.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Belov has made groundbreaking achievements in the innovation of Li ion battery technology. In particular, advancements in electrolyte materials and battery safety technology. He conducted R&D projects for innovative Li ion battery electrolyte materials at the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan. 
Dr. Belov holds a Ph.D. in polymer science from the Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Dr. Kolja Beltrop studied chemistry at the University of Muenster and obtained his doctorate in the group of Prof. Martin Winter in the field of novel electrolytes and advanced electrolyte additives for lithium-ion batteries and alternative energy storage systems. Since 05/2019 Kolja Beltrop is the CTO and co-founder of the start-up company E-Lyte Innovations GmbH. 

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Kimberly recently joined SFA Oxford (UK) as Principal Consultant, specializing in energy transition materials and related commodities and has researched, written/co-written and published numerous major papers and reports on lithium-ion and next-gen battery technologies, alternative fuels, electric vehicles, stationary power storage and the deglobalisation of battery supply chains. Previously, she worked at BMO Capital Markets and developed the firm’s proprietary industry knowledge around energy transition technologies and completed a short term contract for the World Bank to develop battery raw material policy recommendations for the DRC to develop its cobalt industry.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Dr. Adam Best received his PhD from Monash University, Australia in 2002 before completing a post-doctoral Fellowship at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Dr. Best joined CSIRO in 2004 and is currently a Principal Research Scientist with the Metal Industries Program of CSIRO Manufacturing. Adam was Co-Chair of the International Battery Association (IBA) meeting held in Brisbane, Australia, in 2014 and is currently the Co-Chair for the International Meeting on Lithium Batteries (IMLB) 2022 to be held in Sydney Australia. In 2017, he was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship to study battery electrolytes and how to develop a battery industry in Australia. Adam leads several battery research programs developing novel electrolytes and battery concepts including for next-generation lithium batteries with a range of Australian and International Companies and is also the R&D Advisor for Energy Renaissance, Australia's first lithium-ion battery manufacturer. Due to Australia’s mineral wealth, Adam is passionate about the opportunities for Australian industry to be part of the global battery value chain and works to connect them locally and globally.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Matthew Bierman, PhD, is the Global Commercial Director at TexPower. Dr. Bierman is responsible for battery market analysis and product positioning. He has a passion for energy markets and for translating new technologies into actual products. He has significant experience bridging the gap between product concepts and real world developments, including introduction of R&D 100 award winning technologies. Matthew Bierman is the Commercial Director at TexPower. His background includes materials R&D, product development, sales and marketing. He has a decade-long passion for topics in energy and sustainability, and launched R&D 100 Award winning products in this space.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Moshiel Biton is the CEO and co-founder of Addionics, a battery technology company providing AI-optimized, Smart 3D Electrodes for the next generation of energy storage. Biton has served as the company’s CEO since Addionics’ incorporation in 2017. With over 10 years of experience in the battery industry and more specifically the semiconductor domain, Biton aided in the development of image structures specific to battery materials and researching degradation in both conventional and novel battery cells. There, Biton conducted fundamental research into the design, synthesis and application of 3D metal structures that eventually paved the way to Addonics’ formation. Having reviewed research published in seven publications and co-authored three patents, Biton was a recipient of prestigious honors & awards including Tech Talent UK Visa Award, Horizon 2020 Program of the European Commision and the Alan Howard International PhD Scholarship for his work in the industry. Biton holds a PhD in imaging and modeling of battery materials from Imperial College London.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Professional Expertise

As a Managing Director Benton performs site selection for some of the worlds largest companies in both the United States and Canada.  His expertise with site selection, incentives negotiation, and public-private partnerships provided value added services to a range of internal company stakeholders, including finance, operations, real estate, government relations and tax.  Additionally, he offers a depth of experience analysing locations for companies across 40+ U.S. states with a focus on achieving secured capital savings, mitigating risk, and reducing initial or reoccurring operational costs on behalf of clients.  Benton served as a Vice President at a national lobbying firm, Senior Manager at a “Big Four” accounting firm, a licensed real estate broker and a member of a Fortune 500 company’s real estate legal team.

Industries Served

Significant experience working with companies in the battery, chemical, manufacturing, food processing, and fintech sectors in matters pertaining HQ, and back office site selection and incentives negotiations.

Client engagements include advising Fortune 500 utilities on the tax and public relations implications of their generation and HQ / back-office footprint. He also has negotiated incentives for over $5B in new utility-scale renewables.

Major Transactions

Benton has successfully orchestrated inbound projects from countries such as China, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Switzerland and the UK, among others.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Shou-Hang Bo is currently a full professor at Global Institute of Future Technology, and an adjunct professor at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Before joining Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2017, Dr. Bo obtained his BS and PhD degrees in Chemistry from Fudan University (2009) and Stony Brook University (2014), respectively. He was a postdoctoral associate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2014 to 2017. His research interests include solid-state electrolytes, interfaces and imaging of solid-state batteries. In recognition of his scientific contribution to solid-state batteries, Dr. Bo was selected into the Finalists in Energy for the 2017 World Technology Award, and received the Next-Generation Battery Technology Award in 2020.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Gerrit Bockey is an employee of PEM Motion and a research associate at the PEM of RWTH Aachen University. His research work focuses on the development and optimization of equipment for the production of electrodes for next-generation battery cells. In parallel, he manages the news service provider Battery-News and is mainly responsible for the market analysis as well as the transparent presentation of all information and companies in the Battery Atlas. He completed his bachelor's and master's degrees at RWTH Aachen University with a focus on product development. Before his studies, he did an apprenticeship as an industrial mechanic.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Julian’s career spans 25 years of sales and business development serving global technology markets. As divisional president at Morgan Advanced Materials PLC., Julian focused on process engineering solutions for high growth advanced energy markets. More recently, in product leadership roles at Hearst Inc and Agero Inc., including brands BlackBook and MOTOR, Julian has delivered data and software solutions that have changed the landscape of the automotive and auto insurance industries.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Experienced with Li-ion, Lithium primary, NiMH, SOFC technology. Delivered systems for Fighter Aircraft, UUV’s, F1 race cars. Held roles in Test Engineering, Product Engineering, Program Management.

• Battery Intelligence

Nicolò Brambilla, an expert in energy storage and nanotechnologies, is currently CTO of Nanoramic Laboratories. Since joining the company in 2010, he led a team of engineers to commercialize Neocarbonix electrode technology. He has been a pioneer in the synthesis and processing of carbon nano structures for energy storage. He successfully led multiple industrial programs to design and manufacture high performance and scalable energy storage including lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Dan Britton is the National Sales Head (USA) for Cybernetik, leading business development for all industries in the North American market. A Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Milwaukee School of Engineering, Dan’s career trajectory spans across the United States, Europe, Asia and India. With over 28 years of experience, Dan is passionate about technical design, automation and developing solutions to improve a customer’s business.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Mary Ann Brown joined Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI) in 1992 as a Data Entry Associate. At that time CHI was a start-up company with many roles to fill and explore. She quickly realized that conference production which combined creativity, love of learning, and sharing scientific research was the path for her. Mary Ann’s conference portfolio is varied from biologics to batteries where she is organizes over 15 scientific meetings a year along with being a Team Lead for several Key Events. Mary Ann graduated from Doane College in 1978 with degrees in Biology, Environmental Studies, and Geology.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Beatrice Browning is the senior recycling analyst in the forecasting team at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. She has been working towards a PhD in lithium-ion battery recycling since 2019, which has given her an in-depth technical understanding of lithium-ion battery recycling techniques-something that has been highly useful for her role as a recycling analyst at Benchmark. Beatrice has been working on the recycling forecast since March 2021, tracking regional advancements in battery recycling infrastructure, technologies, and policy frameworks to build up a global understanding of the lithium-ion battery recycling market.

• TUT16: Battery Sustainability

Dr. Edward R. Buiel completed his PhD in Physics at Dalhousie University.  His PhD focused on the development of Hard Carbon Anode Materials for LIBs.  Dr. Buiel served at CTO of Axion Power International and Ioxus before founding Coulometrics in 2008.  Coulometrics provides state-of-the-art cell assembly and testing services and facilities are located in Chattanooga, TN.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

No bio available.

• Battery Safety

Vidyu Challa brings 20 years of industry experience with 10 years in the battery space. She has been involved in different levels of the battery supply chain including cell manufacturing, testing, root cause analysis, safety and battery risk mitigation. She has broad based expertise that includes engineering technology start-up experience, consulting, product development, R & D, and various roles in marketing and business development. Dr. Challa has led battery training courses at major conferences and for leading companies in consumer, medical, and automotive verticals. She has consulted for leading companies on Battery quality and safety and has developed battery qualification programs. Dr. Challa obtained a PhD from the University of Maryland, where her work was focused on electronics reliability.

• TUT7: Accelerating EV Battery Design through Simulation

Dr. Vijay Chaudhry is President, International Business & Gas Phase Filtration business division of Bry-Air (Asia) and has over 28 years of comprehensive experience in managing the entire business value chain including balance sheet and P&L management. His area of specialization is in the field of Industrial Air & Gas Pollution Control (APC) and Purification Systems. He has held various key positions and roles for implementation of growth strategies and building businesses on   sustainable basis.

At Bry-Air, he leads the entire International business including wholly owned subsidiaries in China, Brazil, Malaysia, Nigeria and direct export of the company. He is responsible for increasing footprint in overseas markets and sustainable growth of top & bottom line. He is also instrumental in growing the gas phase filtration business across segment like data centres, petroleum & oil refineries, pulp and paper, server rooms, telecom, media broadcasting etc.

Dr. Chaudhry is a Mechanical Engineer with an Advance Diploma in Marketing from All India Management Association, Delhi. He has also been honoured with Doctorate Degree in “Excellence in Management Practices” by Young Scientist University, USA.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Halle Cheeseman has been working in the battery business for over 30 years. From the growth of Alkaline in Europe in the 1980’s, to the emergence of Lithium Ion in the 1990s, to the avalanche of interest in every possible Electrochemical storage system that has dominated the first two decades of this century. After senior leadership positions in the battery industry, Dr. Cheeseman is now a Program Director for the Advanced Research Program Agency for the US Department of Energy (ARPA-E) and is based in Washington DC. Dr. Halle Cheeseman has a BSc with honors and a PhD in Chemistry & Materials Science from the University of Nottingham.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Tom Chepucavage is a seasoned executive with a strong background in finance, management consulting, and technology leadership. He began his career with Accenture in management consulting, where he quickly established himself as a trusted advisor to clients in various industries. His expertise in business strategy and operations management led him to leadership roles in the software and engineering fields, where he gained valuable experience in semiconductor supply chain management and utilities. Currently, Tom serves as the CEO and co-founder of Flow Aluminum, a pioneering company dedicated to researching and manufacturing Aluminum-CO2 batteries. Under his leadership, Flow Aluminum is at the forefront of developing innovative energy storage solutions that not only address the world's growing energy needs but also contribute to environmental sustainability by actively capturing carbon dioxide. Outside of his professional endeavors, Tom is a dedicated father to his 16-year-old daughter, whom he enjoys spending quality time with. He is also an avid enthusiast of skiing and music, often seeking adventure on the slopes and finding solace in the melodies of his favorite tunes. With his wealth of experience and passion for innovation, Tom is committed to driving positive change in the energy sector and making a lasting impact on the world. He holds a degree in Finance from Georgetown University and an Executive MBA from the University of Michigan, where he honed his strategic management skills.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

KJ Cho is currently working as a full professor in the Materials Science and Engineering and Physics Departments at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has received Frederich E. Terman Award from the Packard Foundation in 1997, and he was elected as a Fellow in the Institute of Physics in 2004. He was elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016. His main area of research and teaching is multiscale modeling and simulation of nanoscale materials with the goal of realizing the vision of ‘Materials by Design.” The modeling methods include atomistic and quantum simulations. Structure-property relationships of nanomaterials are the main focus of modeling research. Research topics include clean energy materials (battery, fuel cell and pollution control catalysts) and electronic device materials (2D materials, oxides and III-V semiconductors). He has published more than 355 journal articles and 44 conference papers (SCI: h-index = 62, total citation = 20,022; SCOPUS: h-index = 64, total citation = 22,136; Google Scholar: h-index = 72, total citation = 28,417). He has edited one book and published one book chapter. He has 7 US patents awarded.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Versatile business leader with global network, overseas experience, and accomplishments in Venture Capital, M&A, Private Equity, Sales & Marketing, Business Development, and Strategy/Operations in the areas of e-Mobility, AI/ML, Automation/Robotics, Energy Storage, Sustainability, Decarbonization, Semiconductor, and Cloud Computing.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Steve Christensen brings deep public and private sector experience that is ideal to lead the Responsible Battery Coalition in achieving its mission through impactful multi-stakeholder partnerships and programs. Steve has worked seamlessly across government, academia and business to both improve communication on complex issues and to fundamentally address them. As a senior official the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Steve was responsible for working closely with the White House, Congress and stakeholders to develop science-based public policy to support U.S. agriculture. Since his time at USDA, Steve has advised numerous industry organizations and corporate clients, among them some of the world’s leading commodity groups, chemical manufacturers and energy providers. His work has included: Preventing unwarranted U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation on a naturally occurring substance. Mobilizing a group of independent health and radiation experts to ensure scientific rigor guided the debate on the safety of nuclear energy following the incident in Fukushima, Diiachi. Working with a group of industry experts and outside technical advisors to develop new traceability protocols for U.S. dairy products. Steve is a graduate of the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California, Riverside and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of California Los Angeles.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Recycling
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Mr. Claxton is an Investment Principal at Volta Energy Technologies, a hard tech venture capital firm specifically focused on batteries, energy storage, and related technologies. He has nearly 20 years of experience in early-stage technology commercialization. He has been on the founding team of several technology start-up companies and has worked as a commercialization consultant to various government agencies including the NIH, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Before joining the Volta team in early 2020, Chris spent seven years as Sr. Business Development Executive for Argonne National Laboratory, leading business development and technology licensing for the Lab’s advanced electrochemical energy storage R&D program. While at Argonne, he worked alongside the Lab’s scientists and engineers to successfully lead and close deals with companies across the energy storage value chain, including raw material suppliers, battery material manufacturers, cell and pack manufacturers, system integrators, and automotive OEMs in North America, Europe, and Asia. He holds a B.S. in Finance and Marketing from Indiana University.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

No bio available.

• TUT16: Battery Sustainability

Jacob A. Collison is a global leader in the automotive industry with over a decade of experience developing programs for international tiers and coatings organizations. His expertise and management have led to numerous commercialized products seen within everyday life. Today Jacob leads innovations for dielectric coatings that are helping accelerate the design and safety of electric vehicles as the Global Strategic Product Manager for Dielectric Solutions.

• Battery Safety

Andrew joined Beneq in October 2021 as a Process Development Engineer. He gained his PhD in Physical Organic Chemistry at Aberdeen University in 2001. He has worked in the fields of polymer synthesis and industrial scale roll-to-roll vacuum coating technologies, as well as wet coating technologies. Andrew has worked across multi-collaborative R&D projects, which have directly investigated the scaling up of R2R ALD and battery technologies to manufacturing readiness levels.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Jason Croy received his PhD in physics from the University of Central Florida where his work focused on the electronic, vibrational, and catalytic properties of mono- and bi-metallic nanoparticle systems. In 2010, Jason joined the Electrochemical Energy Storage Theme at Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago, IL. His work at Argonne focuses on the design, synthesis, and characterization of high-energy, lithium-ion electrode materials. Dr. Croy is currently the Group Leader of the Materials Research Group at Argonne National Laboratory and the principal investigator of the Department of Energy’s Deep-Dive consortium on “Earth-abundant Cathode Active Materials” (EaCAM) consisting of ~70 scientists and engineers across 6 national laboratories.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Jeff Dahn obtained his BSc from Dalhousie University (1978) and his PhD from the University of British Columbia in 1982. Dahn then worked at NRC (Canada) ('82-'85) and at Moli Energy ('85-'90) before taking up a faculty position at Simon Fraser University in 1990. He returned to Dalhousie in 1996. At Moli, he did pioneering work on lithium-ion batteries. Dahn was appointed as the NSERC/3M Canada Industrial Research Chair in Materials for Advanced Batteries at Dalhousie University in 1996, a position that he held until 2016. In 2016, Dahn began a research partnership with Tesla as the NSERC/Tesla Canada Industrial Research Chair, which will continue until 2026. Dahn’s research has been recognized by numerous awards, including a Governor General’s Innovation Award (2016) and the Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal in Science and Engineering (2017), Canada’s top science prize. He is the only person to have been awarded both awards thus far. Dahn is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Cameron Dales is co-founder of sodium-ion grid storage company, Peak Energy. Most recently, Cam was an operating partner at Eclipse Ventures where he focused on technology investments in the $8T industrial economy. Previously, Cam was CCO of lithium-ion battery company, Enovix, where he was responsible for commercial strategy and operations. He navigated the company from lab start-up through successful public listing and built a $1.5B sales funnel including strategic relationships with all six worldwide “mega-cap” technology companies. Prior to Enovix, Cam served as VP/GM for Symyx Technologies, a $150M revenue public company that developed high throughput robotic tools for the discovery of advanced materials for the world’s leading energy and materials companies. He started his career at Lockheed, where he developed spaceflight qualified hardware for several spacecraft including the first commercial high resolution imaging satellite. Cam holds engineering degrees from Cornell and Stanford and is an inventor on 103 patents.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Eric C. Darcy, PhD, has spent his 36-year career at NASA in the areas of battery design, verification, and safety assessments for the rigors of manned spacecraft applications. As Battery Technical Discipline Lead at NASA-JSC, his main objective has been the development of safe, while high-performing, battery systems with a deep focus on understanding, preventing, and mitigating latent defects that could lead to catastrophic cell internal short circuits.

• Battery Safety

Dr. Raj DasGupta is the Chief Executive Officer of Electrovaya and has been involved with every aspect of the business from cell manufacturing, engineering activities and business development. Prior to being named CEO in 2022, Raj has had various roles in the company including research and development and most recently Chief Operating Officer. He has led Electroaya’s focus into the heavy duty vehicle segment in addition to growing the company’s efforts for next generation solid state batteries. Raj attended Imperial College, London; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the University of Cambridge, where he received his Doctorate in Materials Science.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Shane, an ex-Mercedes and Ricardo specialist, leads Nyobolt’s battery systems team. With over 25 years’ experience in the automotive industry, Shane has led development teams across multiple areas, delivering high-end software, controls, and electronics into the hybrid and electric vehicles segments. He began his career in 1996 in Cambridge-based start-up Tarragon Embedded technology as an embedded software engineer and has subsequently gone on to take technical lead and chief engineer roles at Ricardo, MathWorks, and Mercedes AMG. During his time at Ricardo and Mercedes he worked on delivering advanced battery and hybrid applications into production. In his role at Nyobolt, he is building a team to deliver advanced battery management and charging solutions across automotive, aerospace, and industrial platforms showcasing the high-power and ultra-fast charge capability of the Nyobolt Cells.

• Battery Management Systems

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.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Recycling
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• TUT2: Battery Safety & Abuse Tolerance Validation
• TUT15: Cell Passport-Designing Li-ion Rechargeable Cell Data Sheets
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Jimmy has served the community of Colorado Springs as a member of the Fire Department assigned to the Hazardous Materials company, and the regional Lithium-ion battery task force. As a leader of the task force, he has helped to prepare and provide awareness to the public, including emergency responders, on how to handle, mitigate, and package battery devices in emergency operations. The task force brings together stakeholders from multiple areas of our community including the Fire Marshalls office, code enforcement, fire operations, fire training division, and other regional partners to develop robust awareness and education on this topic. Over his 20-year career in the fire service he has seen countless changes and operational shifts. However, nothing has been as pivotal to the change in operations as the injection of lithium-ion powered devices in our everyday world. These devices have changed the face of firefighting and the conversation around how to move forward in this ever-changing industry. Jimmy’s unique experience in the private and public sector includes Firefighter, Paramedic, Health Safety & Risk Manager, and FEMA HazMat Specialist. These roles have given him a unique competencies and an informed perspective on the challenges facing first responders regarding the management of lithium-ion battery incidents. There is a tremendous amount of research to digest regarding this topic. The identification of current best practices that will apply to the whole of the fire and emergency services is his driving desire to keep responders and the public safe. Depending on the devices involved in the incident management, packaging and mitigation will have drastically different operations many of which require equipment that comes with great financial obligation. Jimmy believes that the focus needs to be on supporting and providing guidance for all first responders. A vast majority of responders will not have the financial means to purchase specialty equipment to manage these incidents. Thus, education for responders and operational guidelines must support all agencies as these events are not geographically limited to those with robust mitigation capabilities. A collaborative approach, focusing on data driven research to identify resources, operational guidelines, and the development of future safety devices for responders is the goal. This requires the assistance from researchers, engineers, and manufacturers of lithium-ion powered devices. Ultimately, collaboration leads to reduced risk for first responders and a safer community for the people they serve.

• Battery Safety

Jeff DeNigris, a Malvern Panalytical Business Development Manager for 18+ years, holds a Mechanical Engineering degree from Widener University. With 25+ years of experience in production plants, he specializes in in-situ particle characterization. Focused on optimizing processes, Jeff, published in trade journals, now dedicates efforts to battery manufacturing solutions, covering precursor material processing, electrode manufacturing, and battery operando testing.

• Battery Recycling

Stefan Debruyne joined SQM in 2005 as Asia-Pacific Sales Director, Lithium and Iodine, where he witnessed firsthand the lithium-ion battery production boom in Asia and the emerging electrification of transportation in China. In his present role as Business Development Director, he is focusing on the engagement with the automotive battery value chain and its stakeholders. Prior to joining SQM in 2005, he held a variety of international commercial roles at different listed companies. He has earned a Business Engineering degree from University of Leuven and an executive MBA from Vlerick Business School. He currently works for SQM as Director of Business Development.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• TUT16: Battery Sustainability
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Recycling
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Dr. Haixia (Haishah) Deng joined in Ascend Elements in 2022. Before she joined in Ascend Elements, she served as a Sr. Director of Battery Materials in a silicon-valley based company. Dr. Deng has 20 years of experience in lithium ion battery. She focuses on high energy density cathode and anode materials development, manufacturing and Li-ion cell design, and fabrication. Dr. Deng authored more than 30 publications and patents and received 47th R&D 100 Awards for the accomplishment in Li-ion cathode materials.

• TUT6: Technical Approaches to Li-ion Battery Recycling

Kimberly Dennis is an Applications Scientist at TA Instruments with expertise in rheology. She earned her PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware. 

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Chara Diaz is a Program Manager for Element Materials Technology, handling all performance testing through their Boston and Atlanta labs. She has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering with an emphasis on renewable energy from San Jose State University and has worked in many facets of the battery industry from coating and cell building to testing. Chara comes to Element with experience in data analysis for various OEMs ranging from consumer electronics to electric vehicles.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Emily Dickens, the Chief Commercial Officer at Octet Scientific, brings to the table a diverse background in battery research with work in iron flow, lithium sulfur, and most recently, zinc-based batteries. Her multifaceted experience position her as a prominent driving force behind Octet's innovative electrolyte additive solutions for energy storage. Emily's leadership at Octet has played a pivotal role in steering product development for the company's pioneering electrolyte additive products. Her expertise extends across product development, market analysis, and the cultivation of client relationships, resulting in the establishment of over 30 successful partnerships. With a robust background in business and a Master's in Engineering and Management, Emily bridges the gap between technical and commercial aspects, providing a unique perspective into the zinc battery industry and offering valuable insights into Octet's transformative contributions to this dynamic industry.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Safak holds a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering and earned his PhD in LFP cathode nanomaterial synthesis and cell design for EV fast charging.  He is a battery technology and electrochemical engineering expert with a background in Product and Process Development Engineering.  His focus at Pomega USA is electricity storage and grid resilience strategies with batteries.  He has over 20 years of academic and industrial tenure in battery-tech companies for automotive and energy storage-oriented industries.   

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Jian (JD) Dong achieved his PhD in Materials of Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University, China, focused on negative materials in lithium ion chemistry. During his three years postdoc in Georgia Tech, he worked on the lithium ion chemistry and all kinds of fuel cells. In 2006, he worked as a development scientist in NanoDynamic, and developed a very high powered and reliable tubular solid oxide fuel cell. Since 2010, he worked in Saft America Inc. for the development and manufacturing of lithium ion cells. Now he is a leading scientist in the racing related cells development and manufacturing. With his effort, the high powerful racing related cell and battery has become one of the major businesses in Saft.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Sean Doyle is a managing director in Intel Capital focused on manufacturing, semiconductor and supply chain investments for Intel Corporation. Sean’s transactional experience at Intel Capital ranges from seed stage venture financings to public company debt and equity placements worldwide. He has served as investment manager for Intel on investments in companies such as ASM International, ASML Holdings, AT&S, EUV Tech, Impact Nano, Inpria, Ion Microfabrication Systems (IMS), Micron Technology and Voltaix. Sean holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from UCLA.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dominik Droese is a research associate at the EET of TU Berlin. His research focus lies on the characterization of lithium-ion batteries. This primarily revolves around the thermal parametrisation including temperature gradients and heat generation, but also the electrical and aging behavior. It includes the occuring deviations by the cell sizes, mainly automotive-sized, and chemistries. He completed his bachelor's and master's degrees at HTW Berlin, with a specific focus on energy systems.

• Battery Management Systems

Zhijia Du is currently a R&D Staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He joined ORNL in 2015 followed by a 2-year Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship at Dalhousie University. His current research interests are electrolyte development for fast charging of Li-ion batteries, novel processing technologies for low-cost, high energy density Li-ion cells, solid electrolyte design and formulation, operando analysis of ion intercalating compounds, etc.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Tom Evans is NETZSCH Pumps USA's, Market Development Manager - Battery, engaged with the EV battery manufacturing and battery recycling industry in the US, working with all levels of the industry. He has been with NETZSCH Pumps USA since 2022. Previously, Tom worked for several global companies that designed and produced custom-engineered, specialty products for the world's largest process industries, in roles including Global Product Line Manager, Market Development Manager and Marketing Manager. Tom studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, earning a BSME.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Thomas holds his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. He joined Fike in 2007 as a Test Engineer in the Test & Analysis Laboratory. He currently serves as Manager of Test and Validation Engineering, with primary responsibility over activities at the Fike Remote Testing Facility. 

• Battery Management Systems

No bio available.

• Battery Management Systems

Michael Fetcenko is Chairman of CHASM Advanced Materials. He was formerly Executive Chairman for Sion Power and President of Ovonic Battery Company, inventor of NiMH batteries. He is an inventor with over 70 patents and 100 publications in the NiMH and Li-Ion field. He is an expert in bringing technology from laboratory to high volume manufacture.  His inventions are used in all NiMH batteries for consumer, stationary, and hybrid vehicle applications such as the iconic Toyota Prius with over 30 million vehicles on the road.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Researcher in Hydro-Quebec/CEETES for 4 years and named lead researcher of ceramic cell team 3 years ago: head of design, electrochemistry and scaling for ceramic technologies. He was previously assistant professor in LRCS/Université de Picardie Jules Verne Amiens, France in electrochemistry and all-solid-state battery with specialty in interfaces, devices and impedance measurement.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Professor Alejandro A. Franco is Full Professor at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne (Amiens, France). He is also Honorary Member of the Institut Universitaire de France and the leader of the Theory Open Platform at the ALISTORE European Research Institute. He won an ERC consolidator grant for his project ARTISTIC on the digitalization of battery manufacturing processes based on multiscale modeling and artificial intelligence. He also won an ERC Proof of Concept grant for his project SMARTISTIC on the assistance of battery manufacturers using digital technologies. He is/was involved in multiple projects dealing with the use of digitalization to assist battery R&D (e.g. EU PULSELION, EU BIG MAP, EU HELIS, EU POROUS4APP, and bilateral projects between Professor Franco's group and industry). He is the Chairman of the Expert Group “Digitalization, Measurement Methods and Quality” in the LiPLANET battery manufacturing network and he won the French Prize for Pedagogy Innovation 2019 for his use of virtual reality to teach battery sciences. He is the author of more than 140 scientific articles and of more than 120 invited lectures in international conferences.

• Battery Intelligence

Juliette Franqueville is a Ph.D. candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She graduated with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She is part of the UT Fire Research Group (UTFRG). Juliette Franqueville's research focuses on using data-driven methods for lithium-ion battery failure modeling. She has published articles in Fire Technology and in the Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, presented at the 2023 SFPE annual conference, and was awarded a student research grant from the SFPE Foundation. She is advised by Dr. Ofodike Ezekoye, an expert in combustion and heat transfer in high-temperature and reacting systems such as combustion engines, furnaces, structure fires, and battery fires.

• Battery Safety

Eric Frederickson serves as Managing Director of Operations for Call2Recycle where he is responsible for the development and enhancement of the organization’s operations, supply chain, and downstream recycling network. This includes optimizing performance and efficiencies while upholding the organization’s commitment to safety standards and compliance obligations. With over 20 years of experience in highly regulated logistics at some of the nation’s top transportation firms, Eric’s focus is on helping organizations develop scalable pathways for a circular economy.

• Battery Recycling

Dr. Rajit Gadh is Professor of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA, Founder and Director the Smart Grid Energy Research Center or SMERC (http://smartgrid.ucla.edu) and Founder and Director of the UCLA Connected Autonomous Electric Vehicle Program or CAEV. Dr. Gadh has a Doctorate degree from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a Masters from Cornell University and a Bachelors degree from IIT Kanpur all in engineering. He has taught as a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, has been an Assistant, Associate and Full Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was a visiting researcher at Stanford University.

• Battery Intelligence

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.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Kevin L. Gering, PhD (INL) PhD Chem. Eng., University Oklahoma - 1989 (electrolyte theory). Kevin has been involved in battery testing and R&D for nearly 20 years while at INL. Dr. Gering is an established expert in the field of state-of-the-art molecular-based electrolyte models for electrochemical systems (Advanced Electrolyte Model, AEM), and has developed novel performance and lifecycle (aging) models for lithium-ion battery systems covering mechanistic aspects of kinetic limitations and performance loss over battery life (CellSage). AEM generates more than 100 property metrics with each simulation, giving genomic-level information for electrolyte characterization. CellSage simulations perform mechanism-wise analyses of battery aging while accounting for multiple concurrent stress factors that can change over the timeline. Kevin is well qualified to speak on issues of electrolyte transport, characterization, screening, and optimization for lithium-ion systems, wherein particular areas of expertise are highly concentrated electrolytes and low-temperature battery performance. During AEM development, Kevin has achieved milestones in formulating mathematics and new modeling techniques that capture properties that were previously very difficult to model over wide ranges of temperature and salt concentration, such as colligative permittivity, conductivity, diffusivity, viscosity, surface tension, ion desolvation energy and kinetics, double-layer composition and properties, comprehensive ion speciation, osmotic pressure, preferential ion solvation, and many others. Kevin is currently contributing to the DOE program eXtreme Fast Charge Cell Evaluation of Lithium-ion Batteries (XCEL), and is involved in integrating CellSage architecture and outcomes within a machine learning (ML) program under DOE-VTO. Dr. Gering has a diverse background in modeling complex systems, where other previous work covered developing a methane hydrates marine basin model, a dynamic passive aeration compost model, blast wave calculations, transport model for pulsed catalytic reactors, and others. He actively collaborates within DOE labs, universities, and the private sector, and is an advocate of domestic intellectual property, having several patents issued and pending, and under license. AEM and CellSage tools have seen increased licensing, speaking to the growing impact of INL to meet industrial needs.

• Battery Intelligence

Tobias Glossmann has more than 18 years of experience in battery R&D at Mercedes-Benz. He holds advanced degrees in Electronics/Mechatronics engineering from Esslingen University of Applied Sciences and in Chemistry from Oakland University and he is pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Sciences. Over the years he has gained experience in a broad spectrum of issues that included high voltage system design, thermal management, battery controls, materials evaluation and system integration. His current responsibilities include battery research collaborations and development projects. His current research interests are interfaces in batteries and electrochemical sensors and advanced battery materials.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Rohan Gokhale is the Applied Technology Manager for the Rechargeable Battery Materials Division of Umicore in North America. He has a strong background in materials science and electrochemistry. Rohan earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry (National Chemical Laboratory, India) working on novel ways to synthesize carbon materials for use in electrochemical energy storage and conversion. Subsequently, he contributed to the development of carbon based Pt-free electrocatalysts for achieving cost reduction in fuel cells, at the University of New Mexico. Before joining Umicore, he was a Research Scientist at the Nissan Tech Center of North America, working on solid state battery research program for next generation EVs. He has 20+ high impact publications and 3 awarded US patents to his credit.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Dr. Eric Gratz, Co-founder and CTO of Battery Resourcers, is a former Assistant Research Professor at the Metal Processing Institute at WPI, has expertise in recycling, battery materials and extractive metallurgy. Dr. Gratz is responsible for the technical development of novel recycling processes at Battery Resourcers. He served as the CEO of Battery Resoucers from 2016 to 2020 where he grew Battery Resourcers from a 300sq ft lab to a fully vertically integrated pilot plant providing shredding through cathode production services of spent lithium ion batteries and battery materials. He has been working on lithium ion battery recycling since 2012 and is recognized as a global technical leader in the space.

• TUT6: Technical Approaches to Li-ion Battery Recycling

Tom Gregory received his BS in chemical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 1978 and his MS in 1979, specializing in electrochemical engineering. His 34-year career at Dow Chemical encompassed a variety of R&D roles including development and scale-up of production technology for organic, inorganic, polymer, and ceramic materials. He led pioneering rechargeable magnesium battery R&D and engaged in development of novel lithium ion battery and fuel cell-related technologies. Tom is currently a consultant specializing in chemical process analysis, design, and scale-up and electrochemical energy generation and storage. He is active in both AIChE and The Electrochemical Society and frequently serves on proposal review panels for the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy. He is the inventor or co-inventor on 16 U.S. and 42 foreign patents and has published or presented 25 papers in scientific journals and conferences.

• TUT3: Technoeconomic Analysis

Oliver is the global Subject Matter Expert for Advanced Energy Storage and Conversion at Stellantis where he is responsible for the energy storage and fuel cell systems technology roadmaps and architecture. He is a member of the United States Advanced Battery Consortium Technical Advisory Committee, and chairs several additional committees, including manufacturing, 12V Stop Start and 48V Mild Hybrid batteries. He holds both a BS and a Master’s Degree in Materials Science, for the University of Toronto. Oliver has over 25 years’ experience in the advanced energy storage industry. He currently holds over 10 patents, and more than 20 publications.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

No bio available.

• Battery Safety

Bridget Han is a Principal at Schusterman Family Investments and joined the firm in 2021. As a member of the investment team, Bridget invests across public and private markets in a variety of industries including TMT, new energy complex, and health care. Prior to Schusterman, Bridget was a Research Analyst at Soros Capital Management focusing on long/short equity. Before joining Soros Capital, Bridget worked in equity research at UBS covering the Internet sector. Bridget started her career as a CPA at Ernst & Young's Transaction Tax practice. Bridget holds Bachelor's Degrees in Economics & Accounting from Truman State University and a Master's Degree in Accounting from Washington University in St. Louis.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Michael Harenbrock holds the position of Principal Expert, Electric Mobility at MANN+HUMMEL GmbH, a global leader in filtration solutions for the automotive industry. After receiving his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from WWU Münster in 1994, he worked in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry before joining MANN+HUMMEL in 1998 as Manager Materials Development Filter. Further positions in the company included Manager, Advanced Development Filtration Transportation and Manager, Advanced Development Electric Mobility & Fuel Cells. He has worked on fuel cell and battery projects since 2010. Through market and technology monitoring, he identifies the need for new innovative filtration solutions for Electric Mobility, and coordinates their related activities worldwide. International networking and collaboration in industry organizations are essential parts of his work. His passion is for Clean Transport - helping to protect man and environment from transport-related emissions.

• Battery Safety

Steve He has been working at the nexus of materials science and battery development at Tesla since 2016. He is currently an engineering manager at Tesla for cell product development, focusing on designing and developing the 4680 form factor and dry electrode technologies. Steve holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Caltech (2010) and an MS and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford (2015).

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Katherine He is an investor at TDK Ventures, spearheading extensive research and landscape development in energy-storage materials and battery technologies. With a broad spectrum of expertise, she delves into battery startups developing next-gen battery materials, advanced manufacturing, recycling and mining, and electrification solutions across various applications. Katherine plays a pivotal role in supporting investments in AM Batteries, Ascend Elements, Novalith, and Peak Energy. Prior to TDK Ventures, she was a senior battery engineer at Nanoramic focusing on high energy density lithium-ion battery materials and electrode processing. Before that, Katherine led several research projects funded by DOE and NSF to commercialize lab scale innovations. Katherine holds a Ph.D. in materials science, boasts 12 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, and is the Managing Editor and co-founder of the Volta Foundation, the world's largest community of battery professionals.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Daniel Higgs, Ph.D., is the Director of Business Development at Iontra Inc, where he drives rapid adoption of Iontra’s groundbreaking battery charge control technology by OEMs in the powertool, smartphone, EVs, and ESS spaces. Previously, Daniel led Product Management at Forge Nano where he launched 3 products, sold over $15M, and developed a global distributor network. He is an inventor on multiple patents and has presented at >50 international conferences.

• Battery Intelligence

Maurits completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge and Echion Technologies, in the fundamental electrochemistry of niobium metal oxide anode materials. Echion is a spinout company of the university in 2017, that has become the leading commercial provider of these battery materials as of 2024. Maurits has been part of this journey from research into the initial samples at the 1-gram scale 5 years ago, to providing specialist technical support for the implementation of this material to commercial partners today. 

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dave Howell is the Acting Director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) with responsibility for the Department’s $400 million advanced vehicle R&D portfolio. He has over 35 years of experience planning and executing complex, multi-disciplined R&D activities that includes hybrid and electric vehicle R&D, advanced battery research and manufacturing, and advanced structural materials research. Dave serves as DOE’s representative to the United States Advanced Battery Consortium Management Committee, the Executive Committee for the Battery500 Research Consortium, and various international and inter-government forums. He is the Chair of the recently chartered Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB). FCAB brings Federal agencies having a stake in establishing a domestic supply of lithium batteries together to accelerate the development of a robust secure domestic industrial base and ecosystem for advanced batteries.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Dr. Chao Hu received his B.E. degree in Engineering Physics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, in 2007 and his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park in Maryland, in 2011. He worked first as a Senior Reliability Engineer and then as a Principal Scientist at Medtronic in Minnesota from 2011 to 2015. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University and has a courtesy faculty appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests are engineering design under uncertainty, lifetime prediction of lithium-ion batteries, and prognostics and health management. Dr. Hu has received several awards and recognitions for his research, including the Best Track Paper Award at the IISE Annual Conference & Expo in 2019; the ASME Design Automation Young Investigator Award in 2018; the Highly Cited Research Paper 2012-2013 in the Journal of Applied Energy in 2015; the Star of Excellence Individual Award at Medtronic in 2014; and the Best Paper Awards at the ASME Design Automation Conference and the IEEE International Conference on Prognostics and Health Management in 2013 and 2012, respectively.

• Battery Intelligence

Jo is a global battery business leader experienced in international business development and project execution. By replicating the experience of Chinese manufacturers, Jo aims to promote the success of global battery manufacturers by adapting and applying those experiences to their specific local conditions and needs.

• Battery Recycling

Erik Huemiller, PhD, is a Senior Researcher in the Materials and Manufacturing Systems Research lab at General Motors R&D. His work focuses on process modeling and quality system development for battery cell manufacturing for automotive applications. Prior to that, his work focused on advancing the state-of-the-art in the manufacture of mechanically ruled X-Ray diffraction grating for synchrotron light sources. Erik earned his PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Iola is the Research Manager at Rho Motion working on electric vehicle, energy stationary storage and battery market analysis, as well as modelling energy and commodity demand associated with the energy transition, and has been with the company since its inception. Rho Motion, headquartered in London, offers the most comprehensive and well-informed forecasts and analysis for the energy transition.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Hyun Jin (HJ) In, Ph.D., focuses his practice on post-grant matters, advising clients on key issues that span post-grant, prosecution, and litigation practices. With extensive experience across several fields of intellectual property practice, HJ is uniquely positioned to navigate his clients through complex legal issues at the strategic nexus of patent prosecution, post-grant, and litigation.

• Battery Intelligence

Viktor Irle has a M.Sc. in Management & Economics of Innovation from Chalmers University of Technology, where he learnt analyzing emerging markets and market disruptions from new innovations. Being passionate about automobiles and especially electric engines and clean technology, EV-volumes.com is the natural outcome of his set of skills. Viktor is convinced the future automotive history is both electric and autonomous.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Virginia Klausmeier is the President and CEO of Sylvatex, Inc., a venture backed climate tech company that she founded in 2012. With her background in chemistry and engineering, Virginia has been leading technical and business teams for the last 15 years. She is currently an active collaborator at the national labs, reviewer for scientific awards and grants, and advising climate tech and minority led organizations. She is a fellow of All Raise and Unreasonable Group, as well as a member of Alliance of CEOs, Astia, and E2. Virginia attended University of Oregon earning her B.S. in Chemistry/Economics, M.S. in Engineering, and Executive Program at Singularity University.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Landon is a Process Consultant experienced with the design and optimisation of poly-metallic concentrator plants and hydrometallurgy facilities. At Ausenco, Landon’s expertise surrounds the assessment of operational facilities for constraints and developing debottlenecking pathways to maximize process throughput and recovery. Additionally, he develops process and techno-economic models (SysCAD, etc.) for milling operations, POX circuits, technical grade lithium bi-carbonate production, and other novel processes. His previous experience and passion in the design of lithium-ion battery recycling facilities and alternative energy solutions provides valuable insight into opportunities for strategic optimisation of low-emission facilities and supply chains. Furthermore, Landon’s most recent publishing, “The Intersection of Mining and Decarbonisation: Challenges and Opportunities”, explores the relationship between renewable energy solutions and their impact on the demand for critical minerals.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Sam Jaffe is the senior director of business development at Addionics. He has been in the battery industry for two decades as an analyst, a consultant, and an executive. He was previously the founder and managing director of Cairn ERA, a company acquired by E Source in 2021. Prior to that he worked at Navigant and before that at IDC Energy Insights. He was also the founder and CEO of Panea Energy and Cygnus Energy. He is the author of two books, Jewish Wisdom for Business Success and The New Korea, and lives in Boulder, Colorado.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Recycling
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dr. Judy Jeevarajan is the Vice President and Executive Director for the Electrochemical Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at UL Research Institutes (ULRI). With more than 27 years of experience in the area of batteries and a primary focus on the lithium-ion chemistry, she specializes in battery safety research, including safety trends in aged lithium-ion cells and modules, thermal runaway propagation in lithium battery systems, characterizing fire and fire suppressants for lithium-ion batteries, and consumer battery safety. Dr. Jeevarajan serves in the Technical Working Group for standards organizations such as UL Standards & Engagement (ULSE), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)/Society of Aerospace Engineers (SAE), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and American National Standards Institute (ANSI). From 1998 until 2003, Dr. Jeevarajan worked for Lockheed Martin Space Operations at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas. In 2003, she started her work as a NASA civil servant, serving as the Group Lead for Battery Safety and Advanced Technology. Dr. Jeevarajan has several awards to her credit, including the noteworthy NASA Exceptional Service Medal and NASA-NESC Engineering Excellence Award. She has been an active advocate of battery safety at meetings and conferences. She has also authored or co-authored several book chapters, including the “Battery Safety” chapter in Elsevier’s publication titled “Safety Design for Space Systems” in March 2009 (first edition) and July 2023 (second edition), and the “Managing of Risk by Manufacturers of Consumer Equipment” chapter in Elsevier’s “Electrochemical Power Sources: Fundamentals, Systems, and Applications” in September 2018. She continues to contribute to many journal publications and articles. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry (Electrochemistry) from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa (1995) and holds a Master of Science in Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame (1991).

• Battery Safety

Paige is a founder and visionary with a hungry mind and a commitment to new ideas. Her scientific endeavors were sparked by the gift of a microscope for her 11th birthday and led her to a master’s degree in Chemistry and at least one patent granted at every place she ever worked. She founded Ten-Nine Technologies in 2014, with the realization that “I had been founding things my whole life, really, always taking a new approach or launching a new program.” Paige’s principals of curiosity, generosity and authenticity are the basis for Ten-Nine’s culture. In her spare time, she explores urban design-from the atomic gardens of the 1960s to children’s playgrounds-and helps formerly incarcerated women start their small businesses via her non-profit, the Gilded Sparrows. Paige has chosen to build and grow Ten-Nine in her hometown of Tulsa and hopes more high-tech businesses will blossom in their founders’ backyards.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Jakub Kacki has been with UL Solutions for 18 years. He held multiple sales roles for different sub-regions (East Europe, Scandinavia, Germany, UK) in different UL operating units (High Tech, Consumer Tech, Medical, Appliances, Performance Materials, Industrial) throughout his career. For the past 5 years Jakub has been the Europe Senior Product Specialist for Consumer Technology. He has been responsible for Europe sales strategy & safety business to support European manufacturers. Jakub holds a Master of Science degree in in Production Engineering, and resides in Warsaw, Poland.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

In 2007, Genyo Kaneko joined Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. (Maxell, Ltd.), as a member of Design of Primary batteries.  From 2016 to 2017, he was transferred to the development department, engaged in the design and development of Lithium-free Safety button-type rechargeable batteries, and improved their pretreatment process. Since 2022, he joined Maxell Corporation of America, as a Chief Engineer, Energy Products Division OEM Battery Group

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Astrid is an expert in responsible mineral supply chains and responsible sourcing. With 15 years of experience in international development, she has advised governments on different continents and worked globally on ESG issues in the mining sector.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

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.

• TUT14: Li-ion Cell Design and Manufacturing

Ed has worked on multiple projects across the battery value chain. He has worked with governments, financial institutions, raw material suppliers, battery and component manufacturers as well as OEMs. Ed's project experience include due diligence, market entries and strategic advice. Ed also has key experiences in leadership and management, having spent 8 years in the British Army’s Household Cavalry. He accents this with a scientific background, having read Chemistry at Edinburgh University, where his studies focused on hydrometallurgical recovery of nickel.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Mr. Kerchner has served as the Executive Director of PRBA - The Rechargeable Battery Association since 2006. He represents PRBA and its members in the United States and internationally on issues associated with the safe manufacturing, handling, transport, storage, recycling, and disposal of lithium batteries. He also represents PRBA at international transportation forums such as the United Nations Subcommittee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, International Civil Aviation Organization Dangerous Goods Panel, and International Maritime Organization Sub-Committee on Carriage of Cargoes and Containers. Mr. Kerchner has also worked as a Senior Regulatory Analyst with the law firm of Wiley Rein LLP in Washington, DC since 2005 with expertise on the domestic and international transportation of new and waste lithium batteries, electric vehicles, and portable electronic equipment.

• TUT10: Latest Developments on the Safe Transport and Storage of Lithium Batteries

After the studies of mechanical engineering with the focus on automotive engineering as well as automation and control theory at the Technical University in Vienna, Dr. Nikolaus Keuth did his PhD in automation and control with the focus on data driven modelling in 2004, at the Technical University in Vienna. Since 2005, he is working at AVL List GmbH in different roles starting from project manager, product manager, department manager for data analysis and modeling products. Currently, Dr. Nikolaus is product manager for data analytics products in the area of battery, cell development in the automotive market.

• Battery Management Systems

Dong-Su Kim is the CEO and board member of LG Technology Ventures. He has over twenty-five years of investment, strategy, planning, and technology experience. As the founding CEO, Dong-Su established the fund structure, hired key people, and initiated investment operations. Under his guidance, LG Technology Ventures manages over $400 million of fund assets and invests in early-stage information technology, automotive, manufacturing, life-sciences, energy, and advanced materials companies. Portfolio companies include AmazeVR, Lygos, May Mobility, and Ridecell. Previously, Dong-Su was Vice President and GM of Samsung Ventures America where he managed offices in Menlo Park, Boston, London, and Tel Aviv. He has led the investment of over thirty companies in diverse sectors including semiconductors (Soft Machines, Verisilicon, Wave Computing), equipment (DCG Systems, IMS, Reno Subsystems), materials (Nanosys, NexPlanar, Voltaix), and storage systems (Pure Storage). Prior to joining Samsung Ventures, he was a Director at Asia Evolution, an investment bank in Korea covering mid-market financing, private placement, and M&As. Before that, he was a Director at the Technology Strategy Office of Samsung Electronics. As the CTO’s staff, he was responsible for strategic venture investments and technology alliances. He also worked in technology planning for Samsung’s Telecom R&D center, responsible for discovering new research topics. Dong-Su started his professional career as a Technical Leader at Samsung Fiber Optics Business Unit in development of fiber optic components. His past Board Director appointments include Datera, Digital Specialty Chemicals, Femtometrix, Inpria, Reno Subsystems, SBA Materials, SVXR, D2S, DCG Systems (acquired by FEI), NexPlanar (acquired by Cabot), Voltaix (acquired by Air Liquide), Panasas, and Pixtronix (acquired by Qualcomm). Dong-Su also served on the Investment Advisory Committee for Sierra Ventures. Dong-Su has earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, and a B.S. with Honors in Applied Physics from California Institute of Technology

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Bricks Capital Management is a private equity firm focused primarily on electrification and battery industry leaders in North America. The Bricks team harnesses the core values learned from direct battery industry experiences and the best practices working in leading financial institutions. Hansol Kim is a co-founder and a managing partner of Bricks Capital Management. Prior to Bricks, Hansol spent most of his career in the battery and electrification sector working at leading companies such as Apple, LG Energy Solution, and VW's Electrify America. Hansol focuses on identifying growth opportunities and necessary partnerships in the commercialization of key battery technologies. He combines his extensive network, wealth of industry experiences, and a creative mindset to support high-potential technologies into production.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Recognized for his impressive over 30-year career as an expert in Battery Materials, David currently brings his combined global experience and knowledge to his role as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Cirba Solutions.

• Battery Recycling

Emily Klein is a Materials Scientist and Engineer at Element. At Element she uses failure analysis techniques to determine the root cause of a battery failure, completes in-depth safety reviews, verifies cell authenticity, and creates customized test plans. She also helps lead Element's Global Battery Working Group to connect the company’s wide range of specialists to improve their battery expertise and testing capabilities.

• Battery Safety

Jason is co-founder and CTO at Chemix. Chemix is using AI to accelerate the development of next-generation batteries for electric vehicles. Jason has previously worked as a data scientist at Citrine Informatics (a materials informatics software company), as a battery scientist at Cuberg (a lithium-metal battery company), and has a PhD in theoretical physics from Berkeley.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

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 sub-systems 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). Mr. Konecky has worked for multiple OEM and Tier 1 battery suppliers (GM, Fisker, Byton, Cobasys, EnerDel, Lockheed Martin) and has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University (Potsdam, NY) and MS from Purdue (IUPUI - Indianapolis, IN).

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Battery Management Systems
• TUT8: Cell and Pack Design
• Battery Recycling
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Kevin brings more than 10 years of experience in computational mechanics and is a Senior Applications Engineer at Ansys. His current work is focused on battery abuse modeling, Electric vehicle crash and in supporting customers with LS-DYNA related challenges in the automotive, consumer electronics and biomedical industry verticals. Kevin’s PhD work was focused on computational modeling of human soft tissues for automotive safety application.

• TUT7: Accelerating EV Battery Design through Simulation

Alex Kosyakov is the Co-Founder and CEO of Natrion, a battery technology company based in Champaign, IL and Binghamton, NY. Kosyakov studied materials science at the University of Illinois and City College of New York (CCNY). His research has primarily concentrated on reinforced polymer composites and active materials for rechargeable lithium and sodium batteries. Natrion was started in 2018 to commercialize intellectual property developed by Kosyakov and collaborators at CCNY. The company now provides Li-metal battery technologies to automotive, defense, aerospace, and consumer electronics OEMs around the world.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dennis Kountz received an AB degree in Physics & Chemistry from Wittenberg University, and MS and PhD degrees in Physical Chemistry from the Ohio State University followed by an MBA degree from Pfeiffer University. He rose through multiple technical, marketing and management positions in DuPont’s fibers & composites, high temperature superconductivity and fuel cells businesses. He was a visiting scientist for five years at the Carolinas Medical Center. He also led the team that won the 2008 U.S. DoD Wearable Power Prize. Dennis worked for DuPont and the DuPont Peformance Chemicals spin-out company Chemours for 39 years. Recently Dennis joined the Battery Innovation Center (BIC) in Newberry, Indiana where he leads their energy storage education and training team. The BIC is a collaborative initiative designed to partner with commercial enterprises, renowned universities, government agencies, and industry leaders to focus on the rapid development, testing and commercialization of safe, reliable and lightweight energy storage systems for commercial and defense customers.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Vivas Kumar is the CEO and Co-Founder of Mitra Chem. He was previously at Tesla as a senior manager responsible for the global battery supply chain, and a Principal at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. He earned a BS in electrical engineering from Rice University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. Rajan Kumar is a distinguished expert in Battery Engineering and the recipient of many prestigious awards and accolades, such as the NSF GRFP, Forbes Next 1000, and LEEP Fellowship. Dr. Kumar holds a complete degree in Nanoengineering (BS, MS, and Ph.D) with a specialization in advanced manufacturing and polymer-particle composites. One of Dr. Kumar’s most notable achievements during his doctoral tenure is the invention of the world's first printable stretchable battery, recognized as one of the 13 battery innovations set to revolutionize the industry, by Interesting Engineering. 
After completing his doctorate, Dr. Kumar founded Ateios Systems, a battery manufacturing company focused on revolutionizing all components of the battery manufacturing process. Through his LEEP Fellowship, Dr. Kumar was able to secure the development and commercialization of an electrode energy curing process created at Oak Ridge National Lab. Under Dr. Kumar’s leadership Ateios Systems was able to secure over $2.75 million in funding and achieve profitability within just three years of its initial $1.25 million seed round.   

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Emmanuel Lagarrigue (New York) joined KKR in 2022. He leads the firm's global investments in climate. Mr. Lagarrigue has a wealth of experience in sustainability, the energy transition and the transformation of large businesses. Prior to joining KKR, he was one of the founding partners of BeyondNetZero, a General Atlantic fund focusing on growth equity opportunities in decarbonization technologies. Previously, Mr. Lagarrigue was an Executive Committee member at Schneider Electric, holding the positions of Chief Strategy, Chief Sustainability and Chief Innovation Officer. Also at Schneider Electric, he held several P&L and general management positions in Europe, South America, Asia and the United States over 20 years. Mr. Lagarrigue serves on the board of JBT Corporation and is the Chairman of the board of trustees of Menorca Preservation, an NGO dedicated to environmental causes in the Balearic Islands.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Narendra Lakamraju brings over a decade of expertise in leading strategic initiatives at Fortune 500 companies across diverse sectors including Semiconductors, Cloud Computing and Consumer electronics. His career trajectory is marked by a series of notable achievements including pioneering design for reliability methodologies, product qualification initiatives for cloud computing services and implementing reliability frameworks at organizations. His track record of innovation has resulted in multiple US patents being awarded. Narendra has a PhD and Masters in Electrical Engineering from Arizona University.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Dr. Christina Lampe-Onnerud is renowned for developing and commercializing lithium-ion batteries for the portable electronics, electric vehicle, commercial and industrial, and utility markets. She is the Founder and CEO of Cadenza Innovation, a startup whose UL-listed ‘supercell’ architecture enables a new generation of safer, lower-cost, higher-performing batteries. Previously, Dr. Lampe-Onnerud was Founder, CEO and International Chairman of Boston-Power. She grew the battery startup into a global organization with $360+ million in funding, Beijing and Boston technology centers, and multiple Asia-based manufacturing locations. Earlier, Dr. Lampe-Onnerud held executive positions with Bridgewater Associates and Arthur D. Little, where she led the world’s largest non-captive battery lab. Dr. Lampe-Onnerud is the only two-time World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and recently chaired WEF’s Global Future Council on Energy Technologies. A member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, she holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Uppsala University and conducted post-doctoral work at MIT.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Reik Laubenstein is Senior Engineer at IAV’s battery group in North America. He graduated from Humbolt-Universität zu Berlin in 2018 with a PhD. Subsequently, Dr. Laubenstein started at IAV’s Material Science Lab in Berlin, Germany, working on cell & module testing. Additionally, he was involved in developing abusive testing capabilities for thermal propagation studies. Since May 2023, Dr. Laubenstein has been part of the high-voltage battery system team at IAV Automotive Engineering Inc. in Northville, MI.

• Battery Management Systems

Bob is an outside sales representative and specializes in battery application/mechanical engineering at AES. He has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering. Before joining AES, he gained valuable experience as an engineer, specializing in designing and facilitating manufacturing processes for mechanical assemblies. At AES, Bob primarily assists companies in acquiring chambers and battery fixtures tailored to meet their unique testing requirements.

• Battery Safety

Minah Lee is a Senior Research Scientist of Korea Institute of Science & Technology (KIST). Prior to joining KIST, she received Her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from KAIST and moved to Stanford University to pursue her postdoctoral research. Her research is focused on tailoring organic materials and interfaces in rechargeable batteries to enable accelerated adoption of sustainable energy technologies.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dr. Eli Leland is a Voltaiq co-founder and serves as the company’s Chief Technical Officer. Prior to Voltaiq, Eli worked at the CUNY Energy Institute as lead engineer on an ARPA-E energy storage and power conversion research project. Before CUNY, Dr. Leland worked at Trilogy Software, where he successfully deployed large-scale enterprise software systems to Fortune 500 companies. He was a Mirzayan Policy Fellow in Energy and Environmental Systems at the National Academies in Washington, DC. Eli has an MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and a BSE in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton.

• Battery Intelligence

Andrew "Andy" Leyder is the Chief of the Research, Development & Technology (RD&T) Branch within the Office of Hazardous Materials Safety, Pipeline, and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, at the U.S. Department of Transportation. As Chief, he oversees multiple research projects focusing on packaging integrity, risk management and mitigation, safe transportation of batteries, and emerging technology. Mr. Leyder and his staff work to implement the agency's research goals manage the research budget, and work with subject matter experts to initiate new research projects. Mr. Leyder also collaborates with leaders across the federal government and various stakeholders to maximize the branch's activities and engagement initiatives. Before joining the RD&T branch, Mr. Leyder was the Program Analyst under the Data, Risk, and Analytics Branch. He held various roles working on process improvements and assisting with building the Quality Management System to collect Hazardous Material Incident Reports. Mr. Leyder holds a BA in Political Science and Sociology from Albion College (Albion, Michigan), a Master's in Public Administration and Policy from American University, and a Master's in Cybersecurity Risk Management from Georgetown University (Washington, D.C).

• Battery Recycling

Andrew has advised many leading OEMs and Oil & Gas companies on how to react to the rapid growth in Li-ion battery deployment, both in electric vehicles and energy storage systems. This includes advice on contract structures, commercial terms and direct investment into the sector. He has over 20 years of experience in the metals, mining, and chemicals industry as an analyst and consultant, and has held roles as Head of Forecasts & Consulting at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, Director at Wood Mackenzie, and Associate Director and Senior Commodities Analyst at VTB Capital. Supply Chain Insights maintains industry-wide models and forecasts, providing both data and advisory solutions to those involved in and looking to invest in the battery sector. This includes input to Lenders Market Reports, Due Diligence Projects, and Feasibility Studies. He holds a MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Weihan Li is leading a BMBF research group at RWTH Aachen University, where he received his Doctorate degree with the highest praise, summa cum laude, in 2021. During 2018-2021, he was team leader, project leader, and research associate at RWTH Aachen University. During 2016-2017, he was a research assistant at Active Adaptive Control Lab and Sloan Automotive Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his MS and BS in automotive engineering at RWTH Aachen University and Tongji University. He was with the Volkswagen AG, Porsche Engineering GmbH, and SAIC Volkswagen, in various electrical and mechanical engineering roles. He is involved in the development of digital twin for batteries with physics-based modeling and machine learning. His current research interests include model-based battery analytics and monitoring, machine learning for aging estimation and lifetime prediction, battery fault identification with big data analysis, and reinforcement learning for fast charging and energy management.

• Battery Intelligence

Dr. Guosheng Li is presently a Senior Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He earned his BS degree from Tsing Hua University in 1996 and subsequently achieved both his MS and PhD degrees in Physical Chemistry from KyungHee University. Following this, he completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Southern California (USC) before joining PNNL in 2007. Dr. Li has a wide-ranging knowledge base spanning Electrochemistry, Materials Science, Catalysis, and Spectroscopic Characterization. His current role involves leading various battery research and development programs at PNNL, with support from the Department of Energy. His research is primarily centered on materials development, battery design, and validation for grid energy storage applications. Of particular interest are the development and understanding of advanced electrolytes, synthesis of cathode materials, elucidating reaction mechanisms for cathodes, and addressing various interfacial challenges encountered in rechargeable batteries. He has fostered robust collaborations with industry partners, focusing on grid battery scale-up and module testing to enhance comprehension of battery reliability and degradation in large battery modules under more realistic grid service conditions. His contributions to the field are reflected in the publication of over 80 research papers in various prestigious journals, and he holds 7 US patents with numerous US patent applications.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Dr. Zheng Li is the co-founder and CEO of Li Industries, Inc. He has more than 17 years of research, development, and commercialization experience in the design, manufacturing, and recycling of batteries at MIT, Virginia Tech and Li Industries. Dr. Li has been the first inventor and led the prototype design of game-changing battery technologies which have attracted top-tier institutional investors such as Khosla Ventures and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Marco Liberati is the Technical Director for the Mobility and Battery Solutions at Manz USA, Inc. Previously a project scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab studying complex oxides, he moved to the Lithium Battery world in 2011. Since then, Marco is involved in all three cell formats and modules as far as manufacturing processes (laser cutting of electrodes and separator, lamination, winding and etc.), data analysis and technology innovation.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Paul Lichty is the co-founder and CEO of Forge Nano - a materials science company that optimizes material performance to enable better battery and semiconductor products. Dr. Lichty invented the method of high throughput material surface engineering (atomic layer deposition, or ALD) that enables Forge Nano to coat materials with protective and performance-enhancing layers at the atomic level. Dr. Lichty founded Forge Nano as a spin out from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2011 and has since raised upwards of $100M from Volkswagen, LG, Mitsui Kinzoku, Sumitomo and more. Forge Nano's book of business is expansive with partnerships with leading lithium-ion cell manufacturers, battery material production companies and semiconductor manufacturers. Dr. Lichty has a broad technical background with over half a dozen patents to his name. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering and bachelor’s Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Victor Lifton is a Technical Director for Evonik Corporation in Piscataway, NJ, where he is responsible for supporting the use of novel metal oxides additives in Li-ion battery manufacturing, amongst other industrial application.  He has been with Evonik Corporation for 12 years and prior to that he worked for a start-up in the LIB space and at Bell Laboratories developing microelectronic and energy storage devices.  He has a Ph.D. degree from Stevens Institute of Technology in Materials Science. 

• Battery Recycling

Mr. Timothy Lin, with a PhD in material science from University of California, Irvine (2000), is an IEEE senior member and the founder/CEO of Solid Energies, Inc. (Anaheim, CA). SEI has operated its business since 2017, focusing on the research, manufacturing and commercialization of new-generation solid-state battery. Dr. Lin is a veteran scientist and entrepreneur in developing and commercializing new generation renewable/clean energy technologies for over 20 years, having founded 3 companies including SEI and Bioenno Tech. Since 2009, his team has received more than 20 grants from federal agencies including DoE/DoD/NASA, and has cooperated with a number of companies including Boeing and Lockheed Martin on multiple projects related with all-solid-state lithium-ion battery (ASSB). Recently, his team received a 3-year project granted from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to establish an initial commercial manufacturing of ASSB directed toward the mass-production for potential applications in renewable energy and electric vehicles.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Chen Ling graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology and joined Toyota Motor North America in 2011. As the senior principal scientist, he is currently leading the materials simulation and informatics team to support Toyota’s research and development of cutting-edge technologies for the next generation of mobility. His research interests lie in applying artificial intelligence in combination with materials experimentation and simulation to solve energy-related challenges, including materials and device design for batteries, fuel cells, water electrolysis and CO2 reduction. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers and holds more than 35 patents.

• Battery Intelligence

Dr. Lin Liu received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State University in 2011, and subsequently spent one and a half years as a post-doctoral researcher at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, before joining The University of Kansas in 2013. Dr. Liu’s research focuses on the development of new theoretical models to predict both the electrochemical performance and the reliability of energy conversion and storage devices, such as solid-state fuel cells and Lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Liu and his students are also developing new fabrication techniques to synthesize materials and cell components. He has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed research articles. Dr. Liu also has industrial experience at General Motors and The Stanley Works. Currently, the research in Dr. Liu’s group has been supported by NSF, NASA, and the Kansas Board of Regents.

• Battery Management Systems

Dr. Gao Liu is a Senior Scientist and Group Leader of the Applied Energy Materials Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Dr. Liu has over 20 years of experience in developing materials and system engineering for electrical energy storage. Liu’s research combines synthetic chemistry, composite engineering and electrochemistry to solve interdisciplinary problems in energy generation, storage and usage. The Dr. Liu’s lab uses advanced diagnostics to understand fundamental and critical issues in energy systems, and synthetic techniques to develop new materials that improve overall system performance. Dr. Liu pioneered the multifunctional conductive polymer adhesive research. Dr. Liu’s electrode binder research contributes to the fundamental understanding of behaviors of the polymeric binder in the composite electrode, and leads to rational design of functional electrode binders for new storage chemistries. Dr. Liu’s ongoing research in energy storage covers electrode binders, silicon, sulfur and lithium metal materials, electrode engineering, electrolytes and additives, and solid-state conductors. Besides energy storage research, Dr. Liu also performs materials and engineering research in building resiliency, circular economy, and advanced manufacturing. Dr. Liu has over 190 peer-reviewed publications and over 30 granted patents.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Dr. Corey T. Love is a Senior Materials Research Engineer and Battery Team Lead in the Alternative Energy Section of the Chemistry Division at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC. He is a subject matter expert to the Navy for battery performance and safety. He leads and serves on multiple interagency working groups across government.

• Battery Safety

Andy Lozowski is a member of the New Product Development Team at Bitrode Corporation.  His expertise is in power electronics and high-frequency circuit design. Andy earned the PhD degree in electrical engineering from University of Louisville in 1999. He is a Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dr. Lu is a materials scientist in Battery Materials and Systems group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Dr. Lu’s research interest is material and electrolyte development for energy storage as well as in-depth mechanism analysis through advanced 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. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry (Electrochemistry) at Xiamen University, China in 2011. Dr. Lu has more than 40 papers published in peer-reviewed professional journals and holds 6 granted and pending U.S. Patents.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Mr. Lu graduated from Department of Business Administration in National Cheng-chi University, Taiwan, and continued to acquire an MBA degree from National Sun Yat-sen University. His first job concerned with the optical film in China for two years, then came back Taiwan to serve Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) as an analyst in Industry, Science and Technology International Strategy Center (ISTI) until now. As a certified industrial analyst of the biggest think-tank in Taiwan, he is responsible for the research about Taiwan battery-related industry, including material, cell, pack and related applications. Not only handling the official government statistics about Taiwan battery industry, sometimes he also plays a role to provide consulting suggestions for Taiwan government and firms. From 2010 to June 2020, he served as the secretary-general of the Taiwan Battery Association.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• TUT4: In-Depth Analysis of the Chinese xEV Battery Industry

Dean currently leads a team on abuse, performance and integration of energy storage technologies at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa. Dean received his PhD from Dalhousie University studying the reaction at elevated temperatures of Li-ion electrode materials and has since held a variety research positions in Industry, academia and government since then. He is currently active in developing new standards (ISO) and regulations (UNECE) for lithium-ion batteries in the transportation sector as well as directing the research activities of his team within thermal evaluations, modelling and integration of batteries in a variety of applications.

• Battery Safety

Dr. Rahul Malik is the senior science & technology advisor for batteries in the Government of Canada’s Office of Energy Research and Development. Prior to joining the Canadian government, Rahul held roles as a battery scientist at CAMX Power LLC, cell modeling scientist at A123 Systems, and co-founding editor of the peer-reviewed sustainable energy journal Joule. Dr. Malik holds PhD and BS degrees in materials science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University, respectively.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Vision, execution, success. It has been a winning formula for Nadim at companies including LumaSense, Bookham and New Focus. From his initial work as an EIR at U.S. Venture Partners to co-founding Qnovo, Nadim has nurtured adaptive charging from an interesting concept to shipping products. At Qnovo, he has built a top-notch team blending battery chemistry with software and system expertise to bring Qnovo's vision to smartphones and electric mobility.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Avid industry advocate with nearly two decades of combined leadership in battery safety through product, standard, and regulatory development. Enjoys collaborating with international stakeholders from major equipment manufacturers, industry executives, government, and regulatory authorities to achieve common goals.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Dr. Masias is a Cell Technology Research Supervisor in Ford Motor Company's Battery Cell Research Department and has worked on the research and development of lithium batteries since 2002. His past research has focused on battery materials, analysis, and safety, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD), and various universities. His current research focus is on solid-state lithium metal batteries, with an emphasis on the mechanical, safety, and life properties of lithium metal. Dr. Masias is a member of the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) Technical Advisory Committee. He holds engineering degrees from the California Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Jeffrey Mathews is a Managing Director at Barclays covering Battery Technology for the Investment Banking Division. He has nearly 20 years of experience across energy and infrastructure sectors with a focus on M&A, capital raising and project financing. Jeff's clients include large-cap and emerging growth corporates as well as growth equity, private equity and private credit sponsors. Jeff graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in Business and Psychology.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Naoki Matsumura is a Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation, responsible for battery algorithm development, new technology assessment, 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.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Dr. Mayyas is assistant professor of industrial and system engineering. He joined Khalifa University in fall 2018. Before that Dr. Mayyas worked as a clean energy systems analyst at the national renewable energy laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. He is currently involved in R&D activities for composite materials, design and manufacturing of fuel cells, water electrolysis, and li-ion batteries. Dr. Mayyas got his Msc and a Ph.D. in Automotive Engineering from Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina. After graduation in 2012, Dr. Mayyas worked as a research fellow in the University of California-Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he worked with a team of senior researchers on developing a techno-economic analysis for stationary fuel cells. Dr. Mayyas also got his MBA in managing for sustainability from the University of Colorado in 2018. Dr. Mayyas has authored and co-authored more than 75 journal publications and technical reports.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Dr. Mark McArthur is the Director of R&D at NOVONIX Battery Technology Solutions. He and his team’s focus are discovering and developing useful materials and production methods for the energy storage ecosystem. Dr. McArthur has led the NOVONIX Cathode Materials team in their development and scale-up of its patent-pending all-dry, zero-waste cathode synthesis process, which is expected to significantly reduce the costs and environmental impact of nickel-based cathode synthesis. 

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Laura McCalla is a senior principal battery scientist within the research and technology organization of Medtronic Energy and Component Center. There, she leads and works on a wide variety of rechargeable battery projects for medical devices. She has over 12 years of experience in lithium-ion batteries, and received her PhD in Physics at Dalhousie University, where she developed the methodology of using isothermal microcalorimetry to study parasitic reactions in lithium-ion batteries.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Professor Y. Shirley Meng received her Ph.D. in Advance Materials for Micro & Nano Systems from the Singapore-MIT Alliance in 2005, after which she worked as a postdoc research fellow and became a research scientist at MIT. Shirley currently holds the Zable Endowed Chair Professor in Energy Technologies and is Professor of NanoEngineering and Materials Science, University of California San Diego (UCSD). She is the founding Director of the Sustainable Power and Energy Center (2015-2020) and was named as inaugural director of the Institute of Materials Discovery and Design. Professor Meng received the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award in 2011, UCSD Chancellor’s Interdisciplinary Collaboratories Award in 2013, C.W. Tobias Young Investigator Award of the Electrochemical Society (2016), International Coalition for Energy Storage and Innovation (ICESI) Inaugural Young Career Award (2018), American Chemical Society ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces Young Investigator Award (2018), a Finalist for the Blavatnik National Award (2018), International Battery Associations Research Award (2019) and Royal Chemical Society Faraday’s Medal (2020). She is the author and co-author of more than 225 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 book chapter and 5 issued patents. Professor Meng serves on the executive committee for battery division at the Electrochemical Society and she is the Editor-in-Chief for MRS Energy & Sustainability. She is an elected fellow of the Electrochemical Society (FECS) and fellow of the Materials Research Society (FMRS).

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

No bio available.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Chris Mi is a fellow of IEEE and SAE, a Distinguished Professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Director of the US DOE-funded GATE Center for Electric Drive Transportation at San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA. He was previously a professor at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, from 2001 to 2015. He received his BS and MS degrees from Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China, and his PhD degree from the University of Toronto, Canada, all in electrical engineering. Previously he was an electrical engineer with General Electric Canada, Inc. He also served as the CTO of 1Power Solutions and EV Safe Charge Inc. Dr. Mi is the recipient of the “Distinguished Teaching Award” and “Distinguished Research Award” of the University of Michigan, Dearborn. He is a recipient of the 2007 IEEE Region 4 “Outstanding Engineer Award,” “IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section Outstanding Professional Award,” and the “SAE Environmental Excellence in Transportation (E2T) Award.” He received three Best Paper Awards from IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and two Power Electronics Prize Letter Awards. In 2019, he received the IEEE Power Electronics Emerging Technology Award. In 2022, he was named Albert W. Johnson Lecturer and Distinguished Professor of San Diego State University, the highest honor given to any SDSU faculty, and only one award is given each year. He served as an editor, editor-in-chief, area editor, and editor of over 20 journals and special issues of IEEE Transactions, He has served as the general chair or program chair of over 20 conferences. He has published more than 350 journal and conference papers, owns 20+ issued and pending patents, and delivered over 200 keynote speeches worldwide.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Celina Mikolajczak is the Chief Battery Technology Officer at Lyten, prior to that, Celina was the Chief Manufacturing Officer at QuantumScape, responsible for bringing QuantumScape's technology to mass production. Previously, Celina was a member of the board of directors at QuantumScape and the Vice President of Engineering and Battery Technology at Panasonic Energy of North America (PENA), which produces Li-ion cells for Tesla at the Gigafactory near Reno, NV. Celina has 20 years of experience in the battery industry which includes filling a variety of roles ranging from developing safety tests and failure analysis techniques, leading cell quality activities, conducting cell materials development, developing battery regulatory frameworks, and leading design of li-ion battery packs at Exponent, Tesla, and Uber.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Andrew Miller holds the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence Ltd (Benchmark), a London-based market intelligence, consultancy and price reporting agency specializing in energy transition supply chains. Andrew oversees Benchmark's supply chain research and analysis, which stretches from long-term forecasting of supply, demand, costs, and pricing, through to sustainability assessments and bespoke advisory projects for a cross section of industry and regulatory stakeholders. At Benchmark, Andrew regularly presents to leading market participants, government bodies and industry forums, while also travelling to active mines, processing plants and manufacturing hubs across the world. He leads a global team of analysts and consultants and has advised some of the world’s leading institutional investors, auto OEMs, battery producers and mining companies. Prior to Benchmark, Andrew held a number of analyst positions across commodity research and finance, after graduating with a first-class honours degree in Economics from the University of East Anglia, UK.

• TUT16: Battery Sustainability
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Ines Miller is leading the team of battery cells for P3 automotive in the field of E-Mobility. She has been involved in numerous projects with automotive OEMs, suppliers, chemical industry and investment banks mostly covering topics of Li-ion and Next-Gen batteries. Within P3 she is an expert for E-Mobility with focus on Li-ion and all-solid-state cells including technology and cost assessments. Before working for P3, Ines has gained her Master’s degree in Business Chemistry at the University of Ulm.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

David Mitlin is a Cockrell Endowed Professor at the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to that, he was a Professor and General Electric Chair at Clarkson University, and an Assistant, Associate, and full Professor at the University of Alberta, Alberta Canada. Dr. Mitlin is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher (top 0.1% by impact in field), having published about one hundred and seventy-five journal articles on various aspects of energy storage materials, metallurgy, and corrosion. He also holds twelve granted U.S. patents and fifteen more pending full applications, with all of them licensed currently or in the past.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Naomichi Miyairi is a product manager for Hioki USA Corporation. He has been in the test & measurement industry for over ten years. With an M.Eng. degree in chemical engineering from Yokohama National University, he leads the battery testing business, from battery material testing to battery pack testing solutions.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Born and raised in France, Eric moved to the United States after completing his studies to work on innovative ceramic composites at Saint-Gobain's Massachusetts R&D center. Developing a keen interest in climate technologies, he subsequently joined Tesla as a Global Supply Manager, leading the battery anode material sourcing team for two years. In his final role at Tesla, Eric managed electrode design programs for the in-house 4680 manufacturing division. While at Tesla, he recognized significant and largely unaddressed quality concerns in the battery and EV industries, prompting him to co-found Glimpse. Eric holds an MSc in Quantum Physics from Ecole Centrale Paris and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Born in Bavaria and raised in Uruguay, Frederik has been working for BMW's R&D Battery team as a cell project manager since 2017. After completing his PhD in solid-state and semiconductor physics in Cambridge UK, Frederik has worked in a broad range of novel technologies, ranging from Solar cells, OLEDs, AR-head-up displays and now batteries. He has co-developed the next-generation of BMW’s Batteries for the "neue Klasse", optimizing the cell with regards to performance, cost as well as ease of pack-integration and manufacturability. As part of BMW's Solid-State Battery team, he worked on the evaluation of the potential and maturity of solid-state batteries for automotive applications. He now works at BMW's technology office in Mountain view as senior battery technology engineer, where he develops and manages research projects with national partners from industry and academia.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Serial entrepreneur Dr. Brian Morin is the inventor on over 200 patent applications. Brian previously worked for DuPont, and in the Research Division of Milliken. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Materials Physics from The Ohio State University. He received his B.S. in Physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He sees his strength as leading the commercialization of innovative technology.

• Battery Safety

Since 2015, Victoria has served as a Conference Producer for Cambridge Enertech, with primary responsibilities for scientific conference program development within energy market sectors, with conferences based in the United States and Europe. She has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

• Battery Safety

No bio available.

• Battery Recycling

Sophie Myers is an experienced life-cycle-assessment practitioner. She provides qualitative and quantitative cradle-to-cradle life-cycle assessments (LCA) according to the ISO14040:2006, 14044:2006 and ISO 14067 standards for measuring the environmental impacts of critical metals and batteries. Sophie is experienced in producing detailed LCAs on Li-ion battery cell/pack manufacturing and recycling, as well as for lithium, manganese, and graphite raw material production. Sophie is a specialist in the circular economy of batteries, and has produced multiple assessments evaluating the various environmental trade-offs of different battery use and end-of-life scenarios. She is also currently supporting numerous major battery manufacturers in providing carbon footprint reports in line with the EU battery regulations. Additionally, she identifies the environmental hotspots of their battery production and devises decarbonisation pathways to achieve their sustainability ambitions, including supply chain engagement and management through to upstream raw material production.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Jocelyn Newhouse, PhD, is the Director of Iron Battery R&D at Form Energy, leading a team of over 20 scientists and engineers focused on understanding and improving the electrochemical performance of Form Energy’s iron-air technology. Prior to joining Form Energy in 2019, Jocelyn was the Head of Next Generation Tech at Pellion Technologies, a lithium-metal battery startup. Jocelyn earned her PhD in Materials Science at MIT where she studied liquid metal batteries.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Thanh Nguyen is the Senior VP, Deployment for 6K Energy, a Boston-based battery materials company. His responsibilities include defining business strategies and building the next generation of battery material plants globally. Thanh holds several patents in networking and advanced battery development. He has a BSEE from Pennsylvania State University, has completed MSEE-level course work at Penn State and the University of Minnesota, and has an MBA from Regis University.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Jeff Norris, CEO and founder of Paraclete Energy, brings 20+ years of renewable energy storage expertise. Holding an M.S. from Duke, a B.S. from USC, and an E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year title, Jeff is a seasoned serial entrepreneur who's secured $1B+ in financing and strategic deals. He steered a prior venture from concept to NASDAQ IPO with an outstanding 100:1 return. Jeff excels in launching disruptive technologies.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Nowak studied Chemistry at the University of Münster and got his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry. After his doctorate, he joined the working group of Professor Winter at the MEET Battery Research Center at the University of Münster in 2009 as a postdoctoral researcher, where he established the Analytical department. From 2010-12, he was the Head of the Analytics and Recycling competence areas, and since 2012, he has held a position at the MEET Battery Research Center as Head of the Analytics and Environment division, which mainly focuses on electrolyte aging, transition metal migration and surface investigations, recycling and second life, as well as toxicological investigations.

• Battery Recycling

Clara Nyby is a Senior Machine Learning Scientist at Liminal Insights, a battery manufacturing intelligence company that combines ultrasound with machine learning to provide actionable insights on Cell quality & performance. Clara holds a B.S in Chemistry from Tulane University and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University. Before joining Liminal, she worked in ML-guided materials discovery. At Liminal, Clara works on machine learning model development for new applications. 

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Megan O’Connor is co-founder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a metal processing company that has developed technology to enable a clean, domestic, and streamlined supply of critical minerals for the clean energy transition. Dr. O’Connor leverages years of experience working on sustainable technology in many of America’s top research labs, where she helped develop the electro-extraction processes she and her team are commercializing at Nth Cycle. Prior to founding Nth Cycle, Dr. O’Connor was an Entrepreneurial Fellow in the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and was a visiting researcher at Yale University’s Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering. Dr. O’Connor received her PhD in environmental engineering from Duke University and was recognized by Forbes on its “30 under 30” energy list in 2019.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Michael O’Kronley was named CEO of Ascend Elements in March 2020 and has served on the company's board since 2017. Before Ascend Elements, he was Head of Corporate Strategy at A123 Systems. He has worked in the automotive and EV battery industries for over 25 years with previous business development, operations and engineering roles at Metaldyne Corp. and Robert Bosch. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Engineering from the University of Michigan.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Michael O'Brian is the Fire Chief for the Brighton Area Fire Authority (Brighton, MI) and serves on the board of directors for the International Association of Fire Chiefs. Chief O'Brian has served on multiple code development committees including serving as the Chair of the International Code Council Fire Code Action Committee. Chief O'Brian is the Chair of the IAFC Workgroup on lithium ion batteries which is working to develop a tool kit for fire department response, public education, and codes and standards.

• Battery Safety

Research Associate Group Batteries, Calorimetry and Safety, Institute for Applied Materials - Applied Materials Physics (IAM-AWP), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

• Battery Management Systems

Life for me has been nothing short of an adventure-from spending 10 years at sea offshore racing to mastering leadership in the telecommunications industry and navigating the intricacies of business. My expertise lies in crafting and executing comprehensive business strategies, overseeing product development, and orchestrating innovative marketing plans. I specialize in creating compelling narratives and identifying optimal channels to maximize product visibility and reach. Throughout my journey, I've successfully prioritized roadmaps, documented user stories, and spearheaded impactful product launches. In my current role at Skeleton Technologies, I am steering the ship toward strategic business development, aligning with the company's vision for the future.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Prof. Bin Ouyang is runs a group that emphasizes developing high-throughput computation, data mining, and machine learning tools to understand structural-property relationship and predictive synthesis of disordered energy materials.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Denis Pasero joined Ilika Technologies in 2008, as a scientist specializing in battery technology, to manage commercial lithium ion projects. He became part of the Ilika team to apply his strong academic knowledge to commercial applications and saw the potential to be part of the development and success story of an enterprising smaller company with exciting technology and novel product ideas. Today, as Product Commercialization Manager, Denis interfaces between customers and technical teams.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Christina Peabody is the techincal lead for Datacenter IT UPS batteries and energy storage at Google. She is responsible for developing energy storage solutions for Google's critical IT infrastructure. Christina has over 8 years of experience developing data center battery solutions for high availability critical software systems. Christina earned a BE in Mechanical Engineering from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University.

• Battery Management Systems

Barry is President of Perlmutter & Idea Development LLC. He has over 39 years of technical engineering and business marketing experience in the field of solid-liquid separation including filtration, centrifugation, process drying, mixing and recycling. His strong professional skills focus on process solutions, innovation strategy, market expansion and business development. Barry has published and presented worldwide on applications in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and energy/environmental industries and has been responsible for introducing many European technologies into the Americas marketplace. His two books, published by Elsevier, Amsterdam, "Handbook of Solid-Liquid Filtration" and "Integration & Optimization of Unit Operations" are used worldwide for process guidance.

• Battery Recycling

After receiving his Ph.D. from UCLA, Ahmad has been working at NREL on energy efficient technologies including electrified vehicles. Until 2017, Ahmad was the Manager of the Energy Storage Group researching science and engineering of high energy anodes and cathodes, battery thermal management, 3D electrochemical-thermal modeling, safety and thermal runaway modeling, battery second use, techno-economic analysis of batteries for EVs; he led the Computer-Aided Engineering for Electric Drive Vehicle Batteries for Department of Energy (DOE).Between 2016 and 2018 he was detailed at the DOE's Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) as technical advisor to the Battery program supporting battery processing, extreme fast charging and recycling. He was the Administrator for the first Phase of the DOE Battery Recycling Prize.Currently, Ahmad is pursuing energy storage business development activities for NREL and supports VTO with battery processing, manufacturing, solid electrolyte, and low-cobalt cathode projects.

• TUT11: Li-ion Battery Safety & Thermal Runaway

Jeff Peters is a Partner at Ibex Investors where he joined to launch and lead a $113M early-stage VC fund focused on manufacturing, logistics, and mobility. The fund leads rounds or are significant investors in pre-seed, seed, and Series A stage companies around the world. Jeff spent most of his life at the intersection of high-tech and core industries-and as an investor for nearly a decade. His portfolio at Ibex includes technology companies spanning the digital and physical divide with investments in trucking, EV battery design and manufacturing, battery QC inspection, and ADAS sensors. He is attracted to founders with strong founder-market fit and long-term differentiation delivering software to core industries. Prior to Ibex, Jeff was a Partner and the first investment team hire at a corporate-backed VC firm focused on ground transportation. He led investments in edge AI, autonomous mining, automated agriculture, micromobility, and QC inspection. Prior to his VC career, Jeff was a post-doc at Stanford in Management Science and Engineering. He has a PhD in Applied Economics, and MS in both Transportation Engineering and Economics from Purdue University. He started his career at Northrop Grumman Space Systems after earning a BSE in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan. He spent most of his high school years taking apart a 1974 Plymouth Duster and working at his friend's car dealership.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

No bio available.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Christophe has built up considerable expertise in the area of batteries. He joined AVICENNE 26 years ago and spent 3 years in Japan analyzing the Japanese electronic, mobile & battery market. Christophe has acquired extensive experience in marketing, strategy analysis, technology and financial studies for the battery and power management fields. He developed the Battery market analysis for AVICENNE, which serves more than 220 customers worldwide. Christophe has published several annual surveys such as "The Rechargeable Battery Market". He is also the founder & chairman of Batteries - an international industry conference held in France since 1999. He is now Director at AVICENNE ENERGY. Globally, he has been involved in more than 300 projects for 200+ customers in the Battery value chain. Before joining AVICENNE, Christophe held a key position in FRANCE TELECOM's innovation division. He has a degree in Chemistry & an MBA in Innovation Management from Paris IX Dauphine. His mother tongue is French, and he speaks fluent English.

• TUT12: The Rechargeable Battery Market: Value Chain & Main Trends

Professor Plett received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1998. Since then, he has been on the faculty of the Department 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.

• Battery Management Systems

Jan Felix Plumeyer (*1997) is a research assistant at the Chair of Production Engineering of E-Mobility Components (PEM) at RWTH Aachen University. He studied mechanical engineering and business administration with a specialization in production technology and operations research & management at RWTH Aachen University. He specialized in NextGen battery production with a focus on solid-state batteries.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Bryant Polzin has worked at Argonne National Laboratory for the past 10 years in research and development of lithium ion batteries for transportation applications. His focus has been on materials evaluation and the scale up of batteries from coin cell level to xx3450/xx6395 pouch cells and 18650 can cell level. He has established the Electrode Library which consists of industrial quality capacity matched anodes and cathodes that are distributed to Universities, Industry and National Laboratories all over the world for research purposes. He has number of publications covering different aspects of lithium ion battery development and performance. For the past 2 years, Bryant has been the Deputy Director of the ReCell Center for Advanced Battery Recycling. The ReCell Center is a DOE funded program that is aimed at making the recycling of lithium ion batteries profitable. It is a collaboration between National Laboratories, Universities, and Industry. The center is currently working in four areas: Direct Cathode Recycling, Other Materials Recovery, Design for Sustainability, Modeling and Analysis. As Deputy Director along with 2 other executive committee members, we are responsible for overseeing the research, setting up the physical location of the Center and work with Industry to move technologies from the lab to them. Prior to coming to Argonne National Laboratory, Bryant has spent 10 years work in industry. He has spent 5 years working at a start-up company that manufactured sapphire for LED production. He also worked at a machine tool manufacture as a process engineer developing manufacturing processes for a number of different industries and on different materials. He holds a M.S. from Illinois Institute of Technology in Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering and a B.S. from Iowa State University in Ceramic Engineering.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Recycling
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Dr. Ryan Poon joined LiCAP Technologies in 2021 as a R&D engineer and was promoted to Solid-State Group Manager in 2022. As the Solid-State Group Manager at LiCAP Technologies, he leads the research and development of Activated Dry Electrode^® Technology in solid-state battery development. He is responsible for developing electrode formulation, electrochemical testing of cells and interfacing with customers and partners. He developed catholyte for solid-state batteries with superior performance compared to slurry-cast electrodes with higher capacity and lower resistance. His work has demonstrated the feasibility of Activated Dry Electrode^® Technology for the manufacturing of catholyte for solid-state batteries. Recently, Dr. Ryan Poon transitioned into Business Development, leveraging his technical background to promote LiCAP’s technology to new customers and interfacing with customers.

Before joining LiCAP, Dr. Ryan Poon was a R&D Scientist at Mesomat where he utilized his experience with nanomaterials to develop innovative high precision strain sensors for dynamic structural health monitoring. Dr. Ryan Poon holds a bachelor and a doctorate degree in materials engineering from McMaster University in Canada.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Dr. Tomasz Poznar is the Vice President Strategy of Ascend Elements. He is responsible for all strategic initiatives including key collaborations, partnerships and joint technology development with vehicle OEM's and battery producers as well as leading company’s manufacturing expansion. Dr. Poznar has diverse industry experience in multiple functional areas, including strategy planning, product and new business development. He came to Ascend Elements (previously Battery Resourcers) from A123 Systems where he was responsible for corporate strategy and business development. Previous experience includes various executives’ roles and many years of lithium battery and vehicle electrification expertise at EnerDel, Delco Remy and Volvo.

• Battery Recycling

Yuliya Preger is a Principal Member of Technical Staff in the Energy Storage Technology and Systems Group at Sandia National Labs. She earned her PhD and BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and MIT, respectively. Her current work is centered on the safety and reliability of batteries for grid-level energy storage applications. Her publications span battery degradation and abuse response, application of power electronics to energy storage safety, and system level energy storage safety analysis. Dr. Preger is co-founder of batteryarchive.org, the first public repository for visualization and comparison of lithium-ion battery degradation data across institutions, which has been used by thousands of individuals in academia and industry in over sixty countries. She is currently leading the revision of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity Energy Storage Safety Strategic Plan and the development of data collection requirements for DOE-funded energy storage projects across the US.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Rob Privette is responsible for Umicore Battery Material business development in North America. He has extensive experience developing and commercializing new products in the battery and fuel cell industries. He earned his MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and has completed MBA coursework. Before rejoining Umicore in 2018, he was Vice President of Energy Markets at XG Sciences where he created and grew the company’s Energy Materials business targeting silicon/graphene anode materials and graphene-conductive additives for lithium-ion batteries. Prior to that, he was Product Development Director and US Fuel Cell Development Director at Ovonic Energy Conversion Devices and Umicore Fuel Cells, respectively.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Recycling
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

2004 - 2007 : PhD in material chemistry with a Lithium-ion battery specialty (LRCS Amiens, France)

2007 - 2009: research engineer at faculté polytechnique de Mons

2009 - 2014: responsible of battery development for electric and hybrid vehicle at Stellantis

2014 - 2020: Project Manager at Exide Technologies

2020 - now: battery specialist at TotalEnergies

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

No bio available.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Reister is an Application Engineering at Henkel, specializing in coatings for the automotive industry. She has a Bachelor of Science focused in Biological Sciences and Chemistry from the University of Michigan.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Dr. Job Rijssenbeek is Vice President of Energy Storage Research & Development at Albemarle Corporation, based in Kings Mountain, NC. He leads Albemarle’s battery materials research and development efforts, which span all lithium-containing components of a battery. An accomplished global leader with strong expertise in electrochemical energy storage materials, Dr. Rijssenbeek brings 25 years of experience solving materials challenges to create differentiated products that improve customer outcomes. His R&D teams anticipate and develop the advanced materials that will unlock the full potential of lithium-based battery technology. Before joining Albemarle, Dr. Rijssenbeek was a at General Electric’s Global Research Center. Over 16 years at GE, he led several teams researching battery materials, including helping develop sodium metal halide battery technology from the lab to commercialization. Dr. Rijssenbeek received his B.A. in Chemistry from Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) and a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL).

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Kara Rodby has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT. Her thesis centered on techno-economic analysis of aqueous redox flow battery chemistries for long-duration grid storage. She now works at Volta Energy Technologies, a venture capital firm with a scope covering energy storage hard tech. She runs technical due diligence on about half of Volta's deal flow, while also supporting the firm's investor relations, pipeline management, and portfolio support. She serves as a board observer to portfolio company Iontra, who is commercializing a hardware/software approach to charge control that extends cycle life, even under extreme charging conditions (e.g., fast or cold charging).

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

I am an Energy and Processes Engineer from the Berlin Institute of Technology, where I graduated with honors as M.Sc. in Urban Management. In 2005, I completed my first internship at SEMARNAT and have been working on environmental topics ever since. My experience in Renewable Energies at Siemens led me to explore Smart Cities and the use of Big Data. I spent two years working for a Business Insights Norwegian Startup. Since then, I have founded three companies focused on crowd-investing in Europe for energy efficiency projects in Latin America, Climate Impact Measurement on investments in Latin American Microfinance Institutions, and NIU NIU. NIU NIU is my most recent creation, an ecosystem designed to connect critical materials contained in old electronics, such as Lithium and Cobalt, with exciting innovations like EVs.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Eric Rountree is currently the head of special projects and the head of business development at EC Power. He holds a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of North Carolina and has research interests in general electrochemistry, lithium-ion batteries, electrochemical fuel generation, and electrochemical manufacturing techniques.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Professor Kevin M. Ryan holds a Personal Chair in Chemical Nanotechnology at the Department of Chemical Sciences in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Limerick. He is coordinator of the H2020 EU projects Si-Drive and NEILLSBAT in the area of Li-ion and Lithium-Sulfur batteries, respectively. He is Co-Principal Investigator on SFI Centres MaREI and AMBER and funded Investigator on SSPC and Confirm. He is theme leader for the Molecular/Nano cluster at the Bernal Institute and holds SFI IVP and IRC Laureate awards. He is a native of Limerick and graduated with a BSc in 1999 and a PhD in 2003 in Chemistry from University College Cork. He subsequently held Marie Curie Fellowship positions at Merck Chemicals Southampton, UK and at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, prior to joining University of Limerick in 2006 as a Stokes Lecturer. He has published over 140academic papers with a h-index of 43 (Google Scholar) and holds several patents with research interests in semiconductor nanocrystals and nanowires for applications in electronic devices and batteries. His research group currently 5 postdoctoral researchers and 16 PhD students are based at the Bernal Institute (www.nanoresearchul.org).

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dr. Hee Yeon Ryu, currently the Senior Vice President at Hanwha Corporation/Momentum, specializes in business development strategies for battery manufacturing equipment. Before joining Hanwha, he worked at Hyundai Motor Company for 15 years and performed various research and development tasks related to batteries for electric vehicles, ranging from next-generation battery cells to energy storage devices, and promoted investment in battery startups and development of new businesses. Dr. Ryu pursued postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA, where he also earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

No bio available.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Apurba Sakti is an advisor with the energy storage data science team at Albemarle Corporation. Prior to Albemarle, Apurba spent multiple years in academia at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Energy Initiative (MITEI), where he was a principal investigator, and a co-lead of the future energy systems center’s (FESC’s) thrust area on energy storage and low-carbon fuels. Apurba has experience working with the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) in Washington D.C., and with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Zagreb, Croatia. Apurba earned his PhD in engineering and public policy (EPP) from Carnegie Mellon University. For more, see: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apurbasakti

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Dr. Gerald Sammer, Principal Business Development Manager at AVL, received a M.Sc. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering as well as a PhD in Economics. 20+ years of experience in automotive technology with focus on testing solutions. Since 1999, member of the Technical Steering Committee in the automotive standardization body ASAM.

• Battery Intelligence

A chemist by training, Dr. Sanchez’s background encompasses both materials synthesis and characterization, specializing in the analysis of lithium-ion batteries and renewable energy catalytic processes. During his time at Exponent, Dr. Sanchez has worked on evaluating current and next-generation battery and energy storage technologies via quality analysis, performance and accelerated lifetime testing, cell design/materials evaluation and failure analysis. Dr. Sanchez is also skilled in a variety of both destructive and non-destructive characterization techniques, which he has applied to a variety of industries, including consumer electronics, chemicals, medical devices, transportation and aerospace. Besides his primary foci in high-resolution computed tomography X-ray (CT) scanning and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Dr. Sanchez also has extensive experience in various electrochemical (voltammetry, amperometry), microscopy (SEM/TEM, AFM), material properties (TGA, DSC, BET) and spectroscopic (XPS, XAS/XES, Auger, UV-Vis, Raman, XRD) techniques. On the synthesis side, Dr. Sanchez is knowledgeable in both hydrothermal and solution synthesis of macro, meso and nanostructured materials. Dr. Sanchez is experienced in the synthesis of carbon-metal composite nanomaterials on either graphene or carbon nanotubes for battery and super capacitor applications. Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. Sanchez led the first set of surface and chemically-sensitive in operando measurements on a working fuel cell through the use of Ambient Pressure X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (APXPS). Dr. Sanchez also applied this expertise to study water splitting for artificial photosynthesis as a part of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), a Department of Energy (DOE) Innovations Hub.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

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 teams 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.

• TUT12: The Rechargeable Battery Market: Value Chain & Main Trends

Andrew Saucer is the US market reporter covering Minor Metals, Battery Metals, and Electrified Vehicles markets in North America for Argus Media where he handles prices assessments for metals such as cobalt, antimony, and cadmium. Andrew has covered these markets for Argus since February of 2020. Prior to working at Argus, Andrew obtained an honors degree in Materials Engineering and Public Affairs from the Colorado School of Mines. Argus is the leading independent provider of market intelligence to the global energy and commodity markets. We offer essential price assessments, news, analytics, consulting services, data science tools and industry conferences to illuminate complex and opaque commodity markets.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Tom Schadewald is a Director in Baird’s Equity Capital Markets group focused on raising capital for companies in the electrification space looking to commercialize their technology. Tom has nearly a decade of experience in investment banking across both Equity Capital Markets and corporate finance advisory. Prior to Baird, Tom worked at UBS and led the effort to grow out the firm’s SPAC and capital markets advisory businesses. He started his career at Deutsche Bank in Equity Capital Markets focused on financial institutions. Tom holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dr. Brian J. Schultz is a materials scientist and the Founder & CTO of Dimien Inc., an emerging company focused on cathode innovation using vanadium oxide materials. Brian started Dimien after successfully earning his PhD in chemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is the recipient of multiple million dollar federal and state small business grants over his tenure as CTO, in addition to numerous rounds of private capital financing. Dimien is focused on materials design, development, and commercialization of vanadium-based lithium-ion energy storage systems.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Dr. Austin Sendek is the founder of Aionics, Inc., an industry-leading artificial intelligence and high performance compute co-innovation partner for the battery industry. Dr. Sendek is also Adjunct Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University and was included on Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 in Energy list in 2019. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University and a B.S. in Applied Physics from UC Davis.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Kamal Shah recently retired from Intel Corp. after multiple decades of distinguished career where in his last role he managed archiecture execution for next generation of servers for AI and non AI workloads. Prior to that, in Intel's Client Computing Group, one of the key areas of his responsibility was leadership of the Extended Battery Life Initiative for the mobile PCs as well as leadership of an industry wide battery life consortium. In this role for over twenty years, he led the enabling of many innovative power saving technologies which cumulatively have led to thin and light and 8-10 hours battery life laptops we use today. Working with Intel Capital, he also led investments in many promising power savings and power sources technologies. Over his many years in this role, he evangelized the need for longer battery life through ingredient power reduction and innovation in power sources technologies at hundreds of industry conferences. He is a charter member of Oregon TiE organization and acts as a mentor for startups in India.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Daniel Shapiro is a Technology Deployment Manager at the US Department of Energy Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC), working with the private sector and other Federal agencies to scale-up and deploy the manufacturing infrastructure critical to the Nation’s energy supply. Prior to the DOE, Daniel worked for QuantumScape Battery and Fluence Energy, working to launch the next generation of battery energy storage systems for customers around the globe. Throughout his career, Daniel has led people and projects to bring new, innovative product concepts to life. He has held positions of various levels in product engineering, manufacturing, and business strategy for large and small companies including Philips Electronics, Medtronic, Volkswagen, and Ford Motor Company. In addition to his industry experience, Daniel also supported teaching digital operations management at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. Shaw develops strategic research directions, provides technical insight and expert support, and manages a portfolio of work on the environmental impacts of fossil fuel technologies, energy storage and renewable generation, deep decarbonization strategies, and emerging energy technologies. This covers air, water, and health impacts; life cycle assessment; and sustainability. Most recently she has co-created and leads a safety research portfolio for battery energy storage systems. Dr. Shaw received a B.S. in chemical engineering and a PhD in atmospheric chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

No bio available.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

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.

• Battery Intelligence

Brian Sisk is CTO of Sepion Technologies, developer of innovative materials including size-selective coated separators and electrolyte systems for automotive and other applications where excellent fast charge and cycle life are paramount. Before joining Sepion, Brian was Senior Director of Energy Storage Systems for Rivian, where he developed the battery systems for the company's award-winning R1T truck, R1S SUV, and Electric Delivery Van. Brian also served as Vice President of Cell Product Development at A123 Systems where he launched NMC and LFP batteries with extreme charge rates for EV, mild-hybrid, and 12V applications. Brian has a PhD in Chemistry from California Institute of Technology.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Steve Sloop has pioneered comprehensive methods to improve safety and efficiency in recycling lithium-ion batteries and materials. These include deactivation of lithium-ion batteries to eliminate hazards in transportation and storage; electrolyte extraction; electrode harvesting and separation; and cathode-healing™, which is a direct method to reintroduce lithium, structure, and performance to scrap electrodes.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Battery Intelligence
• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Recycling
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Mr. Smith is the manager of the Electrified Powertrain section in the Powertrain Engineering Division of Southwest Research Institute. He oversees a team of engineers focused on conducting testing, research, and development on lithium-ion batteries to improve safety, performance, and life. His team also conducts testing, research, and benchmarking of PEM fuel cell technologies as well as electric motors, inverters, and vehicles. Mr. Smith is also the program manager for the Electrified Vehicle and Energy Storage Evaluation (EVSESE) Consortium. The work conducted in this consortium provides an assessment of state-of-the-art technologies in electrified vehicles and lithium-ion batteries and conducts research on topics like fast charging, immersed (dielectric) coolant, and lithium plating prognostics.

• Battery Management Systems

No bio available.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization
• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Divyank has experience in electrode slurry mixing equipment and process development. He has designed, installed, and commissioned 10+ Lab, pilot and mass production lines for conventional, high solids and Dry electrode lines in USA and Korea. 

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Before coming to Exponent 14 years ago, Dr. Spray earned his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in chemistry from Wittenberg University and Purdue University, respectively. He is a Principal Scientist in Exponent’s Polymer Science & Materials Chemistry practice where he primarily works with various clients on the development, performance, safety and failure analysis of various batteries, especially those used in consumer electronics, transportation and critical applications, such as aerospace and medical devices

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

As a business development executive on Mortenson’s Energy Storage and Solutions team, I have the privilege of working with the best builders in the industry. I am committed to zero injuries and flawless project delivery, which allows us to develop some of the most innovative energy storage projects across the country, on time and on budget. I'm committed to customer success through all project phases, from pre-construction and design through installation and commissioning. Outside of work I'm an avid traveler and Chicago sports fan!

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Rengaswamy Srinivasan, Ph.D. is the primary inventor of the noninvasive Battery Internal Temperature Sensing-Battery Management System (BITS-BMS). He is the primary inventor on 22 US and international patents; 8 on BITS-BMS and 14 on batteries and corrosion. He has 10 publications in peer-reviewed journals on BITS-BMS. He is a member of the UL Research Institute Electrochemical Safety Research Institue advisory board; and a member of the NTSB-UL Battery Safety Counsel.

• Battery Management Systems

Ionel Stefan is Amprius’ Chief Technology Officer. He joined Amprius in its very early days to lead the development of 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.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Bjoern Stoll is an accomplished business leader with a significant international experience, having worked and lived across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the USA. His expertise spans the cryogenic sector, energy, battery, and charging infrastructure industries. Formerly COO and Board Member of the largest cryogenic valve company in India and Southeast Asia, Bjoern now serves as CEO & President of Digatron Power Electronics, USA, and Quench Americas. He spearheads advancements in EV Charging Infrastructure, Energy storage, and Batteries throughout the Americas.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

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.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• TUT9: Improving the Energy Density of Batteries with Silicon-Based Anodes
• Next-Generation Battery Research

William Sudah, an Industrial Fire Safety Consultant with Honeywell 18 years. His focus and experience lie in life safety systems, and collaborates directly with end-users, design engineers, and channel partners assisting with design, layout and sequence of operation. William is a principal member of NFPA 88A and is invited frequently to present to Fire Marshalls on safety and design requirements. William earned a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from Concordia University, Montreal.

• Battery Safety

Yiming Sui received his B.Sc. degree in 2017 from Northeastern University, China, and his M.Sc. Degree in 2019 from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. He is now a Ph.D. student at Oregon State University in Prof. Xiulei Ji’s lab. His research focuses on batteries with new chemistries such as dual-ion and proton batteries and thermodynamics and kinetics in aqueous electrolytes.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Valentin completed his PhD at the University of Oxford, followed by research positions at University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon University. During that time, he worked on creating fast and accurate models of battery performance and degradation. He is now co-founder and CEO at Ionworks, where he is working on making these models useful for the battery industry, in particular for accelerating R&D.

• Battery Intelligence

Dr. Kang Sun has served as Amprius’ President and Chief Executive Officer since February 2017 and as a director on the Amprius Board since December 2016. Dr. Sun has also served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of Amprius, Inc. since March 2010. He also has served as a director of Amprius (Nanjing) Co. Ltd. since 2017 and Amprius (Wuxi) Co. Ltd. since November 2014, both entities of which were spun off from Amprius in 2022. Prior to joining Amprius, Inc., Dr. Sun led two business ventures in the renewable energy space, serving as President and Chief Operating Officer of JA Solar Co. Ltd., a manufacturer of high-performance photovoltaic products, and as chairman and Chief Executive Officer of RayTracker Inc., an advanced solar tracking system company that was acquired by First Solar Inc. Prior to that, he has held senior executive positions in several large business enterprises and technology start-ups, including Vice President and General Manager at Honeywell International Inc. and Vice President of Technology at Canon Production Printing (formerly Oce, N.V.). Dr. Sun holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Brown University, an M.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Georgia and a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Nanjing University, China.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Rajesh Swaminathan is a Partner at Khosla Ventures, with over two decades of experience assisting and investing in deep tech startups. He manages many of the firm’s investments across renewables generation, storage, hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, plastics, foodtech, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. Previously, Rajesh was the head of Applied Ventures LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, where he managed a portfolio of 85 deep tech startups globally and two deep-tech funds in Korea and Taiwan. He led investments and helped build companies with strong exits, including Enphase Energy, Solid Energy, Rockley, Infinite Power Solutions, Adaptive3D, Tango, Inpria, PlayNitride and Norsk Ti. Rajesh was recognized amongst the top 100 global CVCs on the Global Corporate Venture (GCV) Powerlist. Earlier, he worked at Third Point Ventures and at Lucent’s Bell Labs, where he drove technical assessments and partnerships for several optical, MEMS, and RF device startups, and also led DFR programs for the successful deployment of Lucent’s 10Gb/s and 40Gb/s systems. While pursuing his MBA at Harvard Business School, he worked on Deutsche Bank’s cleantech banking team and worked with KV on companies in solar and water. Previously, Rajesh earned a master of science degree from the University of Maryland and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, where he was awarded the Shankar Dayal Sharma (President of India) Medal for overall excellence.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Donald has over 20 years of leadership experience in the domestic and international resource sector with extensive experience in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. A highly skilled mining professional with a proven track record of success in developing and executing business development strategies that resulted in significant revenue growth and creating new business segments. Before joining American Rare Earths, he was Senior Vice President for Vista Energy Holdings, which developed two mining projects, both now fully operational in Alberta and Nova Scotia, Canada. He has also held various leadership roles with Westmoreland Coal Company, including Chief Commercial Officer, SVP of Commercial, Sales and Marketing, VP Sales and Marketing, VP of Business Development. Donald has also held leadership roles with John T. Boyd Company and Consol Energy. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Denver University and a Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering from West Virginia University.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Masaki Takei joined ULVAC in 2005, and was assigned to the current Advanced Technology Laboratory,

where he mainly engaged in research and development of thin film deposition process and

materials until 2015. He moved to the development of vacuum technology for batteries starting

2016, and became a Senior Manager of the same laboratory in 2022.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dr. Darren H. S. Tan is the CEO and co-founder of UNIGRID Battery, a spin-out startup from the Sustainable Power & Energy Center at University of California, San Diego. Darren obtained his PhD from UC San Diego's Chemical Engineering department. He is currently leading the UNIGRID team in commercializing next generation advanced sodium ion batteries for the emerging e-mobility and stationary storage markets.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Ying Shi Teh is a Research Scientist at NobleAI who focuses on constructing Science-Based AI models of batteries, formulation chemistry and materials. Prior to joining NobleAI, she worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab where she focused on building physics-based and data-driven solutions for accelerating molecular dynamic simulations.  She obtained her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Caltech where she also was awarded a Resnick Fellowship for her work in sustainability.

• Battery Intelligence

MacKinnon, Bennett & Co. is a specialist climate tech growth equity firm, headquartered in Montreal. MKB’s investment focus centers on power, mobility, the built environment, and industrials. Jesse joined MKB in 2022. He leads investments in the power and industrial domains as Partner, based in Houston. Jesse has worked to enable energy innovation for over 20 years, both as an investor and in senior commercial roles with startups and global companies including GE and Chevron. His early experience includes technical management for marine propulsion and power generation projects. With Chevron Technology Ventures, he was a founding member of Chevron’s climate-tech focused Future Energy Funds-$100m Fund I and $300m Fund II-and led numerous investments. These investments in Series A through E companies included EV infrastructure, energy storage, and advanced power generation. Jesse also spearheaded the deployment of a range of novel technologies within Chevron and its partners. Jesse’s community engagement centers around inclusive access to youth soccer, and mentorship of clean energy leaders and early career professionals. He earned a U.S. Soccer Federation National-C coaching license, and is a past board member of Westbury Soccer Club in Houston. Jesse holds a B.S. in Marine Engineering from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. He served 11 years in the U.S. Naval Reserve, completing service with the rank of lieutenant commander.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

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.

• TUT5: Solid-State Batteries

Carl Thoemmes is currently Business Development for Battery Materials at Koura. As a global leader in fluorine and fluorinated products, Koura are currently scaling up domestic manufacturing in The United States of America for LiPF6, PVDF, Fluorinated Electrolyte Additives and Solvents, and Custom Electrolytes. Prior to that, Carl was the Vice President of Global Sales for Silatronix, a company that develops unique high-performance organosilicon electrolyte materials for use in Li-Ion batteries. 

• International Battery Seminar & Exhibit

Dr. Thomas, Lead Scientist, Surface and Pores at Anton Paar, has more than 40 years of industrial experience in the characterization of powders and porous materials since studying for his PhD (nickel hydroxide electrode). He is co-author of ten porous materials patents and "Characterization of Porous Solids and Powders: Surface Area, Pore Size and Density" published by Springer.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Mr. Thompson is a Distinguished Engineer in the Experience Innovation Group at Dell Technologies. He has delivered technology leadership to Dell mobile products in the areas of battery energy density, fast charge, calendar life, and data strategy. He has recently expanded his role to include sustainable materials in support of Dell Technologies Social Impact goals. He has 30 years of industry experience with more than 50 granted patents. Prior to joining Dell Technologies, Mr. Thompson held positions in energy storage technology research, cell design, technology licensing, and battery material commercialization.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Simon Thompson is a battery technology development manager in the Vehicle Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy. His primary responsibilities include co-managing the Advanced Battery Materials Research program, especially solid-state batteries and the work in battery development in the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle space. Prior to joining VTO, Simon worked for three years in the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office at DOE. He is a PhD chemical engineer by training.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Dr. Tremolet de Villers is a principal researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado (USA). He has physics and spectroscopy expertise in organic and hybrid-organic photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage systems, i.e., Li-ion batteries, and the scale up of these technologies. In his battery research, he has developed in-situ spectroscopic methods to study solid-electrolyte interfaces and electrolyte solvation structure in silicon anodes and next-gen high-nickel/low-cobalt cathodes for rechargeable cells. He has also implemented ultrafast laser patterning of battery electrodes for enhanced performance. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Before joining NREL in 2013, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

James Trevey PhD, CTO of Forge Nano, is an expert in Li-ion batteries and supply chain, a thought leader in materials science and technology scaling, and an advocate for energy sustainability. He is an Officer of NAATBatt, Founder and Vice President of the Military Power Sources Consortium (MPSC), and a Chair of Li-Bridge, among numerous other advisory boards in the sustainability sector, where he is an active supporter and enabler of collaborative industry and government relations focused on energy security.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

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 involved in multiple projects where he leads investigation on battery modeling and the application of model-predictive control to improve the performance and extend the lifetime of lithium ion battery cells. Other research efforts include: reduced-order modeling methods, modeling of lithium-ion degradation mechanisms, empirical and physics-based modeling of lithium-ion battery thermal properties, as well as predictive methods for power estimation.

• Battery Management Systems

Tem is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Nomadic Venture Partners, where he focuses on fund strategy, fundraising, portfolio construction, valuation, and financial analysis. Prior to co-founding NVP, Tem was an investment professional at Resource Capital Funds (RCF), a mining-focused private equity investment firm, managing early- to late-stage investments. He de-risked companies, commercialized their businesses and successfully completed M&As that delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to investors. Prior to RCF, Tem worked for Newmont Mining Corporation as a mining engineer and then project engineer. Tem also co-founded MNG Summit, a non-profit organization supporting Mongolian students and early career professionals. He started his professional career as an entrepreneur where he started and operated a transportation company in college to help pay for college tuition and support extended family. He served as board member and treasurer of the Colorado Chapter for the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) as well as a board member of the Ulaanbaatar-Denver Committee for the Denver Sister Cities. Tem received his BS in Mining Engineering from Colorado School of Mines. During his free time, he likes to golf, hike, cycle, and spend time with his wife and two kids.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Electrical Engineer, 25 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”; from 2011 to 2016 Head of Department “PV Off-Grid Solutions and Battery System Technology”; since 2017, Head of Department "Electrical Energy Storage" and Coordinator of Business Unit “Electrical Energy Storage”; Coordinator for Stationary Battery Storage at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE; Contact Person for Battery Systems at Fraunhofer Battery Alliance; Spokesman of R&D Advisory Board of German Energy Storage Systems Association (BVES); Technical Advisor of Working Group “Stationary Applications and Integration” of Batteries European Partnership Association / Batteries Europe; Member of Steering Committee of Batteries European Partnership Association / Batteries Europe.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage
• TUT13: Safety, Reliability & Performance for Energy Storage Projects (instructor will be presenting virtually)

Venkat Viswanathan is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Viswanathan’s research focus is on identifying the scientific principles governing material design, inorganic, organic, and biomaterials, for novel energy conversion and storage routes. The material design is carried out through a suite of computational methods being developed in his group, and validated by experiments. Some key research thrusts include identifying principles of electrolytes design (organic material) that can tune electrode catalysis, identification of new anode, cathode (inorganic materials), and electrolyte materials for next generation batteries, and new electrocatalysts (inorganic) and biomaterials for energy storage and separation applications. In addition to material design, his group is involved in several cross-cutting areas such as battery controls, electric vehicle security, and GPU accelerated computing. Viswanathan received the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2019, Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry in 2018, the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2016, the American Chemical Society PRF Young Investigator Award in 2014, and the Electrochemical Society Daniel Cubicciotti Award in 2010. He was a finalist for MIT TR Innovators Under 35 in 2014, and was an Electrochemical Society Herbert H. Uhligh Summer Fellow in 2009.

• Battery Intelligence

Linx Waclaski is the Product Manager for Ion Chromatography for Metrohm USA. He has years of experience in multiple chromatographic techniques, ion chromatography, gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, and mass spectrometry, with extensive experience in R&D and applications development.

• Battery Recycling

Expert on battery cell technology at BMW group since 2018. Associate professor at University of Agder (Norway) since 2023.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Chao-Yang Wang, Fellow of National Academy of Inventors, is William E. Diefenderfer Chair Professor of Mechanical, Chemical, and Materials Science & Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. He has 220+ journal publications, 33,000+ citations, an H-index of 100. He holds over 140 patents and has published two books, “Battery Systems Engineering” by Wiley and “Modeling and Diagnostics of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells” by Springer. His work on all-climate battery (ACB) was selected by 2022 Winter Olympic Games to power electric vehicles serving the Games, as well as adopted by several carmakers. His latest inventions on fast charging batteries (FCB) and safe, energy dense batteries (SEB) were highlighted in journals Nature and Science as well as covered by mainstream media such as USA Today, Popular Mechanics, The Guardian, AFP, Daily Mail, etc. Dr. Wang's expertise covers the transport, materials, manufacturing and modeling of batteries and fuel cells.

• Battery Management Systems

Dr. Matthew Wang graduated from Peking University with a Materials Science major in 2010. He has over 14 years of working experience in the Lithium-ion battery industry. At Amionx, his R&D focus is to make safer batteries by developing SafeCore to mitigate thermal runaway. He leads an internal team to develop next generation safety technologies, and he also oversees external technical programs with international customers and partners. 

• Battery Safety

Dr. Watanabe joined Matsushita Electric Industrial 1990. In 2009, he became Director, Technology Development Center at Matsushita Battery Industrial, then in January of 2011, he became Technology General Manager of the Ion Battery Business Unit at Sanyo Electric. Dr. Watanabe obtained his PhD from Osaka Prefecture University in 2014, then in April 2015, he became Assistant Director, Secondary Battery Business Division at Sanyo Electric. In July 2016, he was named Director, Tesla Business Unit, Sanyo Electric and then in August of 2017, he became President, Panasonic Energy of North America. In April 2019, he was named Head of Energy Technology at Panasonic Corporation and then in February of 2022 Dr. Watanabe became the CTO of Panasonic Energy Corporation.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Next-Generation Battery Research

As Sr. Vice President of Manufacturing for Clayco’s Industrial Business Unit, Scott leads a progressive team of experienced planning, design, and construction experts as they work to deliver successful capital projects for some of the world’s most disruptive brands in the EV, battery, automotive, and aerospace industries. 

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Libby Wayman is a Partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investor-led fund created to accelerate the transition to clean energy and a decarbonized economy. Prior to BEV, Libby led clean technology development at GE where she served as the Global Director of Innovation for GE’s Ecomagination strategy, where GE invested over $10B in clean technology and generated over $200B in revenue. Libby also served as the Director of the US Department of Energy’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative, where she formulated clean energy manufacturing tax credits (48C), and established new research programs and institutes for advanced manufacturing for clean energy technologies. Libby began her career in entrepreneurship and technology development, including research and development in solar at SunPower and Alion Energy. Libby holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT, and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, where she co-founded the MIT Energy & Climate Club. Libby also co-teaches the MIT & Harvard Climate & Energy Ventures course.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

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.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Manuel has a passion for innovation and international collaborations, with areas of technical expertise that include batteries, materials science, and nanotechnology. Working in the lithium-ion battery industry, Manuel has gained extensive experience in lithium-ion battery R&D and technology commercialization, while being instrumental in taking technology from lab scale to pilot production ready. As Head of the Energy Division at AnteoTech his work is focused on enabling high silicon content anodes leading the development of the AnteoTech’s silicon anode program. With a Master of Engineering in Materials and a Master of Business in Entrepreneurship, Manuel is skilled at leading technology development as well as commercialization activities and has participated in several successful substantial capital raises. Previously, Manuel led and pioneered the development of super lightweight, metallized-polymer, current collector technology, for lithium-ion batteries and next generation lithium metal anodes.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dr. James Wilcox has over 20 years of experience in the battery industry. He joined Enovix in 2008 as part of the core team that developed the company’s patented stacked cell architecture. He holds a Ph.D. in Material Science and Engineering with a Designated Emphasis in Energy Science and Technology and a Masters of Science degree in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Bates College and has 7 patents related to battery materials, processing and cell design. 

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Sheldon S. Williamson (Fellow, IEEE) received the B.E. (Hons.) degree in electrical engineering from the University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India, in 1999, and the MS and PhD degrees (Hons.) in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA, in 2002 and 2006, respectively. He is currently a professor with the Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering and the Director of Smart Transportation Electrification and Energy Research (STEER) Group, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, ON, Canada. His current research interests include advanced power electronics, electric energy storage systems, and motor drives for transportation electrification. He holds the prestigious NSERC Canada Research Chair in electric energy storage systems for transportation electrification.

• Battery Intelligence
• Battery Management Systems
• Battery Safety

Since 2014, Craig has served as Executive Director of Conferences for Cambridge Enertech, with primary responsibilities for scientific conference organization and program development within energy market sectors with conferences based in the United States, Asia, and Europe. Previously to joining CII, from its inception in 1998, Craig was the Founder and President of the Knowledge Foundation, a scientific conference and publishing company until it was acquired by CII in 2014. Additionally, Craig was a Director at IBC USA (now Informa), and has previous experience in conference development, publishing and techincal marketing.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics
• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications
• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Battery Recycling
• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials
• Battery Safety
• Next-Generation Battery Research

Dr. Michal Wolkin is the former Director of GM Ventures Battery and Electrification fund, and is currently at stealth mode. Michal has two decades of experience in venture investments, technology evaluation and product insertion. She has been serving as a board member in public and private companies. Michal has a PhD in Applied Physics and has been developing and implementing disruptive innovation in frontier technologies for 3M, PARC, and NASA. Prior to GM Michal was a partner at GFT Ventures.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

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.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Subject Matter Expert for stationary energy storage, including lithium-ion battery technology, system design/applications, performance, warranty and performance contracting and market trends.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

EV, aviation, space, MotoGP, F1 enthusiast and electrical engineer who happens to also be the Vice President for engineering at Unico, LLC.  He is transforming the successful dyno drive system company into a world class player in the battery test industry with new products based on SiC and GaN technologies for battery cell, module, and pack testing and emulation.

• Battery Management Systems

Ken Wu is the senior product specialist for SEM/SDB at Thermo Fisher Scientific in the material science market. Ken has used to be an application scientist in the North American application team for 8 years to support both materials science and life science customers. Over the past several years, Ken has devoted most of his attention to 3D characterization, as well as preparing TEM lamella and conducting Cryo FIB on different materials. Ken received his PhD degree in materials science and engineering from Lehigh University studying effects of dopant and interfacial chemistry on diffusion limited processes in alumina with the goal of improving oxidation resistance of high-temperature alloys.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Ang Xiao, leading AI and quantum applications in chemicals and battery materials at SandboxAQ, holds a Ph.D. in Battery Chemistry and a Data Science Graduate Certificate. With 15+ years in chemical and Li-ion battery industries, his expertise includes battery material synthesis, failure analysis, molecular simulations, AI and machine learning. He has published 39 papers and filed 11 patents, with over 2,000 citations.

• Battery Intelligence

Dr. Jun Xu currently is an Associate Professor (tenured) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Delaware (UD), and Director of Vehicle and Energy Safety Laboratory (VESL). Prior to his join at UD, Dr. Xu worked at UNC Charlotte as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor (tenured) from 2018-2023. Dr. Xu was appointed as the founding Director of the NC Battery Complexity, Autonomous Vehicle and Electrification (BATT CAVE) Research Center at UNC Charlotte. He obtained his PhD at Columbia University in 2014 (major in Environmental Engineering and Engineering mechanics). His research expertise sits in the electrochemo-mechanics-thermal coupled modeling and characterization of battery safety and advanced design and understanding of structures upon dynamic loading. So far, Dr. Xu and his students/postdocs have published more than 130 peer-reviewed journal papers, with citation of 5,900+, H-index=44.

• Battery Safety

Dr. Gautam G. Yadav is a world-leading materials scientist and electrochemist, working as the Director of Advanced Battery Development at Urban Electric Power (UEP) in New York. He earned his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University, where he specialized in synthesizing 1D complex metal oxide nanowires for thermoelectric applications and lithium(Li)-ion batteries. Prior to joining UEP, Dr. Yadav worked as a Senior Scientist at the CUNY Energy Institute, where he led the advancement of highly energy dense aqueous-based batteries based on manganese dioxide (MnO2) and zinc (Zn) as a replacement for the expensive and dangerous Li-ion batteries for grid-storage applications. He is the primary inventor of the reversible second-electron MnO2 technology and the breakthrough high voltage (2.45-2.8V) MnO2|Zn battery, which are published in Nature Communications and ACS Energy Letters, respectively. He has authored 19 publications and filed over 26 patents on MnO2|Zn technology, which have been licensed by UEP. At UEP, Dr. Yadav is leading a team of engineers and scientists to bring the second-electron MnO2 and high voltage (2.45-2.8V) MnO2|Zn battery to commercialization.

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Marina is the Director, R&D and New Business Development at Livent Corporation. She started her career in 1995 and today her expertise in technology and markets covers lithium battery supply chain from lithium extraction to future energy storage devices. Marina has inventions in lithium-ion battery materials widely used commercially, including the cathode technology that has become the industry standard and is used in a vast majority of consumer electronics devices. Marina is currently a member-at-large for the ECS Battery Division, member of the advisory boards for the Battery500 consortium and Aichemist Metal Inc. Marina has over 100 patents granted in US and worldwide.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing
• Next-Generation Battery Research

• Battery Recycling

Chuanbo Yang is a Senior Energy Storage Engineer at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). His research interests focus on Li-ion battery safety, battery pack life modeling, battery thermal management, and battery packaging technique. Prior to joining NREL in 2012, he worked in an electric vehicle company as a Battery Modeling Scientist.

• Battery Safety

No bio available.

• Battery Safety

Dongfang Yang received his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Guelph in 1995. He joined the National Research Council Canada in London, Ontario in 2001 and is now a Senior Research Officer. His current research interests include laser materials processing; pulsed laser, sputtering, and e-beam deposition of thin films; new materials development for energy storage devices; chemical and optical sensors development; and electrochemical studies of organic adsorption and self-assembly monolayer. He is currently serving as an editor or a member of editorial board for over 11 scientific journals and was listed among the top 2% most-cited scientists according to a recent Stanford study in 2020. He also held an Adjunct Professorship at both Western University and Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Yi Yao is a Director in R&D department of REPT BATTERO. He recieved a Ph.D. of physical chemistry from Chinese Academy of Science. YAO is in charge of the development of chemistry systems in Li-ion cells for both EV and ESS, especilly the design and application of cathode materials including LFP an NMC. 

• Grid-Scale Energy Storage

Atsushi Yashiro Joined NIPPON STEEL Chemical & Material Co., Ltd. in 2020. He is a member of inorganic materials development group, being in charge of Fe-based metal foil development applied for lithium-ion batteries. He got a master's degree at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Ruijie Ye is currently postdoctoral researcher at Forschungszentrum Jülich. He obtained his doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) at RWTH Aachen University in 2023 under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Egbert Figgemeier. Before that, he received M.Sc. and B.Sc. in chemistry from Saarland University and Tongji University, respectively. In 2021 he was awarded JSPS Fellowship for his academic stay in the group of Prof. Dr. Nobuyuki Imanishi at Mie University in Japan. His research interests focus on ceramic solid electrolytes, solid-state batteries and their processing, and characterization of oxide solid electrolytes and interfaces in solid-state batteries.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Weiting Yeh, graduated from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan), majoring in polymer physics. He has been doing research on separators and lithium batteries at BenQ Materials for 13 years. So far, he has published more than 10 related patents and research papers. He is currently in charge of business development and R&D department in the Battery Materials Division

• Next-Generation Battery Research

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• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Won S. Yoon is dedicated to helping clients with a variety of patent legal services ranging from patent prosecution, Patent Trial and Appeal Board post-grant proceedings, due diligence, infringement and invalidity opinions, and freedom to operate analysis.

• Battery Intelligence

Zhiao Yu received his BS in Materials Chemistry from Peking University as an honored undergraduate, and got his PhD in Chemistry from Stanford University. In 2022, Zhiao co-founded Feon Energy, Inc. for commercializing his PhD research on practical high-energy lithium metal and anode-free batteries. He is the CTO of Feon Energy, Inc. and has been selected as Activate Fellow cohort 2023. During PhD time he did an internship in Cell Manufacturing Engineering at Tesla, and after graduation, he worked as full-time Research Scientist in artificial intelligence for battery materials at ByteDance. Zhiao conducted research on lithium batteries under the supervision of Prof. Zhenan Bao and Prof. Yi Cui during his PhD. He published ~50 papers and invented 6 patent applications. His works and inventions are featured in WIRED, Tech Xplore, Stanford News, Stanford Energy News, Eureka Alert, Popular Mechanics, Futurity, Science Daily, The Engineer, Green Car Congress, PV Magazine, Engadget, etc.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

John is recognized as the leading authority on lithium-ion battery safety and separators. He is a leader in establishing lithium-ion battery industry standards (P1625, P1725, and CTIA) through the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has chaired and/or organized more than 60 international conferences and delivered more than 60 invited keynote or plenary speeches at various international conferences. John has published more than 110 patents, papers, and books, including the first ceramic coating separator patent (US 6, 432, 586) and some of the most cited papers (Chem. Reviews, 2004 and Li-ion safety papers 2006-now). Dr. Zhang received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Shanghai University. He holds a Master of Science Degree in Electrochemistry from Shandong University, and a Ph.D. in Material Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has also completed additional Post Doctorate studies in Nuclear Interactions.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Dong Zhang received the B.S. degree in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, in 2015, the B.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, in 2015, and the M.S. and PhD degrees in systems and control engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, in 2016 and 2020, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA. His research interests include dynamical system control, optimization, machine learning, energy storage, and advanced lithium-ion battery management systems.

• Battery Management Systems

Dr. Peng Zhao is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering and Space Institute of the University of Tennessee. He obtained his PhD from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University in 2015. From 2015-2020, he was an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oakland University. His research interests primarily focus on fundamental-based and application-oriented problems in the frontier areas of combustion, propulsion, energy conversion and fire safety. His current research activities include reacting flow, open-source multi-physics modeling, Li-ion battery safety and thermal management, alternative fuels, advanced engine combustion strategy, etc. He has published around 50 peer-reviewed articles in leading combustion and energy journals and 1 book chapter. He is a Bernard Lewis Fellow of the International Combustion Institute, session chair of the International Combustion Symposium, session organizer of SAE world congress on advanced propulsion and powertrain, member of the Early Career and Diversity Development Committee of the US Combustion Institute.

• Battery Safety

Yiran brings his experience in battery cell manufacturing with an extensive knowledge in equipment/system design and analytics including material flow, process simulation, and financial analysis. He is currently an engineer registered in BC, Canada. He has a master's degree in mechatronics design plus over 5 years working experience in high technology manufacturing, during which he participated on the design and implementation of several battery cell manufacturing facilities. 

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Bob started at Hewlett-Packard in 1984. During his 38 years with HP, Agilent, and now Keysight, Bob has been part of the company’s marketing and R&D organizations. Now, as a solution architect, Bob is responsible for Keysight’s battery testing solutions roadmap. He has also managed Agilent’s power supply test systems business and wireless power business. Bob holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

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• Next-Generation Battery Research

No bio available.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Ernst van Nierop is a Director of Strategy at Sila. In this role he leads Strategy Development & Planning, supported by market research and competitive intelligence. Prior to Sila, Ernst was VP of Scaling at GitLab where he built teams and organizational processes to help the company scale rapidly and globally. Ernst has also held the roles of Process Engineer with Akzo Nobel and VP of Engineering at C12 Energy. Ernst has a MSc degree in Applied Physics from the University of Twente, and a Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Larisa von Riewel holds Ph.Ds. in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics from University of Tübingen with expertise in heat transfer mechanisms, interaction of radiation with matter, and computational physics and chemistry.  She has 25 years of theoretical and practical experience in academic and industry research, holds 30 patents, and numerous scientifical publications.  Currently, she leads the innovation and research activities for the global team promoting photonic solutions along the battery value chain.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization