演讲者

Anil Achyuta is the Managing Director of TDK Ventures ($350M AUM) that invests globally in early stage deeptech startups. At TDK Ventures, he has reviewed over 2500 start-ups, invested in thirteen companies, and serves on 5 Boards as a Director or an Observer. Of his 13 investments, Anil has 2 exits, 1 M&A (Origin - 3D printing company) and 1 IPO (GenCell - fuel cell company), 1 unicorn (Ascend Elements - battery upcycling company), 3 are in the “soon-to-be-unicorn” club (>$300M+ in valuation - Autoflight (flying car company), Exo (hand-held medical ultrasound company), Verdagy (green hydrogen company), 4 are at $100M+ valuation and the last 3 are early companies growing rapidly. Anil was voted one of the Rising Stars in 2021 by Venture Capital Journal and was ranked #2 Rising Star in 2021 out of 20,000 corporate venture managers globally, in addition to being voted as one of the Emerging Leaders of 2022, which represents top 0.5% in the industry. Prior to TDK Ventures, Anil held leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies including L'Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Draper. He has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University and received his MBA from the University of Florida - Warrington College of Business. He has authored over 15 peer-reviewed journal publications and holds 5 U.S. patents. Anil’s thought leadership articles can be found on Medium and YouTube https://www.linkedin.com/in/anilachyuta/ https://tdk-ventures.com/cvc-team-serving-entrepreneurs/anil-achyuta/ https://medium.com/@anilachyuta

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Varnika is a Battery Research Analyst at Rho Motion where her primary focus is on the technical side of electric vehicle, energy stationary storage and battery market analysis. Rho Motion, a Benchmark Intelligence Company is headquartered in London.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Gunjan Agarwal has extensive experience with hardware product launch and new technology development. Over the past couple of decades, she has formulated and delivered solutions to address critical challenges in diverse industry domains such as energy storage, renewable energy, e-mobility, automotive, electronics and semiconductor fabrication. Gunjan brings technical leadership experience from her prior roles at multinational corporations such as Intel, Tesla and Rivian, where she oversaw product development from concept to launch, her technical consulting experience including root- cause failure analysis at Exponent and focus on early-stage product development at the International Battery Company. Gunjan received her PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a minor in Finance at the Sloan School of Management. She has published extensively in scientific and engineering articles with ~1000 global citations and is a lead patent author on inventions with industry partners such as Tesla and Google. With a deep commitment to develop renewable energy solutions, she is passionate about technologies that mitigate climate change and promote sustainability.

• Large-Scale Energy Storage

Dr. Nojan Aliahmad is an experienced battery scientist and engineer with over a decade of expertise in lithium-ion and solid-state battery development, materials engineering, and process scale-up. He currently serves as Senior Manager of Battery Development at Ensurge Micropower, leading the advancement of all-solid-state lithium microbatteries built on ultra-thin stainless-steel substrates. His work focuses on LiPON electrolytes, cathode-electrolyte integration, thin-film encapsulation, and reliability optimization. Prior to joining Ensurge, Dr. Aliahmad was Senior Manager of Battery Development at Sakuu Corporation, where he directed efforts to scale lithium-metal and lithium-ion cell technologies, and pioneered dry-electrode manufacturing for next-generation energy storage. Dr. Aliahmad earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, specializing in solid-state physics and nanotechnology. His professional interests bridge materials innovation, process engineering, and product reliability, with a focus on translating scientific insight into manufacturable energy solutions.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Mayowa Alonge is a Battery Systems Integrity Engineer, specializing in conceptualizing, designing, and validating battery pack safety systems. He holds a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University Kingsville. At Amazon Inc., he contributes to consumer electronics product development. His experience includes work at Cummins Inc., where he developed High Voltage battery pack systems for Medium and Heavy Duty Trucks. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Manufacturing Engineer at Kaffo Group and as a Design & Prototype Engineering intern at Prototype Engineering Development Institute.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Dr. Ramin Amin-Sanayei is a distinguished innovator with 47 granted U.S. patents, reflecting the impact and originality of his work. He is a leading expert in lithium-ion battery (LIB) technology for advanced binders for cathodes and separator coatings-enhancing both safety and performance, particularly in automotive applications. Dr. Amin-Sanayei bridges science and business, ensuring innovations align with customer needs, regulatory standards, and sustainability goals. His contributions have earned him prestigious honors, including the 2025 ACS Heroes of Chemistry Award and the 2014 ACS Team Innovation Award. He is also a long-time DOE project reviewer and an active organizer and session chair at ECS meetings.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

With 7+ years dedicated to the battery ecosystem, hydrogen, biofuels, EVs, and energy storage, I've developed a deep understanding of the talent landscape in this dynamic industry. As the sole author of the industry's first Battery Talent Salary Survey and Program Director of Battery Workforce Development at the Volta Foundation, I've been at the forefront of addressing the critical talent gap. My expertise spans the entire spectrum of recruitment, from executive search and niche placements to high-volume projects. I've successfully partnered with both established cleantech giants and promising startups to build world-class teams. I'm committed to delivering exceptional results through quality, long-lasting client partnerships, ethical practices, efficient services, quick delivery, and creative solutions.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

With 13 years of experience driving innovation in advanced vehicle development and leading commercial teams, Tyler Andrews serves as Vice President at Echion Technologies to help build the next generation of resilient and high-performance battery solutions. With a passion for practical technology disruption, Tyler leads strategic partnerships with OEMs in sectors across defense, mining, and automotive; integrating cutting-edge hybrid and full electric powertrains that redefine the limits of current gen solutions. Based in Washington, he loves spending his free time outdoors with family, hitting the ski slopes, mountain biking, or playing baseball.

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

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.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Rakan is a technology programs manager at Orbia Fluor & Energy Materials (an Orbia Business). He currently leads technology and product development of graphite anode materials at Orbia. 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

Peter Attia received a PhD from Stanford University in materials science and engineering in 2019 and a BChE in chemical and biomolecular engineering from the University of Delaware in 2014. He currently works at Tesla. For his PhD, Attia worked with Prof. William Chueh to study degradation in carbon negative electrodes of lithium-ion batteries from the interfacial to full cell scales. Attia’s work ranges from fundamental characterization and modeling of the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) to predicting and optimizing battery lifetime using machine learning techniques. His work has been published in high impact journals including Nature and Nature Energy. Attia’s honors include the ECS Battery Division Student Research Award (2019), the MRS Graduate Student Award (2019), the MRS Open Data Challenge (2019), the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2014), and the Stanford Graduate Fellowship (2014).

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

2017 ~ Current, CEO / NEBA CORPORATION 2012 ~ 2016, Senior research engineer, Hanwha Chemical Corporation 2006 ~ 2011, Principal research engineer, Samsung SDI 2006 ~ Ph.D., The Chemical Engineering of Illinois Institute of Technology

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Bär is the Managing Director/President of the adphos Innovative Technologies GmbH. He is one of the founders of the IndustrieSerVis GmbH (legal predecessor of AdPhos) and Entrepreneur of the Year in 1998 (Germany). Before he was the leader of the business segment “High Temperature Technology and Installations” at IABG, Ottobrunn. Dr. Bär was responsible for the Technology-Program “HERMES-Heatstructure-Tests” (the European space shuttle program) and graduated as Dr.-Ing. (with award) at the faculty of mechanical engineering at the RWTH Aachen in Germany.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

Dr. Meisam Bahari is the CTO and co-Founder of Quino Energy, a leading startup company, where he leads the commercialization of aqueous organic flow battery technology. With his leadership and support from the U.S. Department of Energy, Quino has advanced its technology from lab scale to multi-ton pilot-scale production. Prior to co-founding Quino Energy in 2021, Meisam was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, where he contributed to the development of the quinone-based flow battery technology that forms the foundation of Quino Energy’s product. He holds a Ph.D. in electrochemistry and a background in chemical engineering, with over a decade of experience working on electrochemical systems, including fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries, and flow batteries, the latter being his primary focus in recent years. Outside of work, Meisam enjoys reading, traveling, hiking, and spending time with his two young children.

• Large-Scale Energy Storage

Jonathan Bain started at BYK-Gardner USA in a technical sales role covering the Southwest region in 2012. In 2018, Jonathan took over the Southwest and Western US territories, and in 2023 he was promoted to Business Line Manager for dispersion. He works directly with the BYK Gardner Regional Sales Managers across the USA and Canada to grow the Dispersion business.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Harish Banda, co-founder and CEO of Daqus Energy Inc. and an Activate Fellow, earned his Ph.D. from the University of Grenoble, France, and completed postdoctoral research at MIT in the group of Prof. Mircea Dinca, where he co-invented TAQ-a high-performance, transition-metal-free organic cathode. He is leading Daqus’ efforts in the development and commercialization of high-energy organic batteries.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Wurigumula Bao earned her B.S. in Environmental Engineering from the Beijing Institute of Technology, where she also completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering with a focus on advanced anode materials. She then pursued postdoctoral research at UC San Diego, developing quantitative methodologies to study reaction mechanisms in anode materials and their interphases. In 2022, she joined the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering as a Project Scientist, where she investigates degradation mechanisms in rechargeable batteries and develops standardized methodologies for lithium inventory quantification and battery safety evaluation. Dr. Bao has delivered numerous invited talks at international conferences and published extensively in leading journals such as Nature Energy, Energy & Environmental Science, and ACS Energy Letters. Her research centers on advancing metrology to quantify lithium inventory, probe interphase chemistry, and analyze degradation mechanisms, aiming to accelerate the development of next-generation energy storage technologies.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Brian Barnett serves as CTO for Nyobolt and leads the company's US operations. Dr. Barnett has extensive experience in 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, spin-off or sale.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

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

Lukasz Bednarski is an associate director at IHS Markit. He covers battery materials market with particular focus on lithium, graphite, manganese, cathodes, and anodes materials. Lukasz has worked in the commodity sector spanning physical trading, training, product management, and research. Prior to joining, his interest in battery materials led to the development of an independent industry portal covering the sector. In addition to his degree in economics and business administration from Aalborg University, Lukasz has studied financial topics in China, Russia, Germany, and Liechtenstein. He is the author of popular non-fiction book "Lithium: The Global Race for Battery Dominance and the New Energy Revolution.”

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

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

• Battery Recycling

Mark has 30 years of experience in process design and project development. He is Hatch's Global Director of Battery Materials and Cells, including Recycling. Mark has worked with numerous clients in the battery space including Forge Battery, Nano One, Novonix, GM, POSCO, VW, Graphite One, Vianode, Li Cycle, Aleon, Altilium, Duracell, and Panasonic.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Kimberly is an independent consultant specializing in energy transition materials and related commodities working with firms such as Avicenne, Positive Materials and the World Bank Group. She 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 de-globalisation of battery supply chains. Previously, she worked at BMO Capital Markets and developed the firm’s proprietary industry knowledge around energy transition technologies.

• TUT5: Critical Minerals and Battery Supply Chain: Challenges, Geopolitics and Sustainable Solutions

Irene Berry is the Director of Data Science at Albemarle Corporation. In this role, Irene leads data science, modeling, and forecasting across the lithium and bromine ecosystems from mine to market. She has 15 years of experience applying physics-based models and data science to hybrid and electric vehicles, energy storage systems, battery technologies, and chemical markets. Irene has master's degrees in mechanical engineering and in technology policy from MIT.

• 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

Sidd is an Executive Director, Debt Investments based in London, and leads IFM Next Generation Infrastructure Credit, the firm’s dedicated investment strategy focused on providing scale-up capital in the form of credit to the world’s most promising companies building the next generation of industrial and infrastructure solutions across sectors such as clean energy, industrial decarbonization, transportation, circular economy, amongst others. Sidd has wide commercial experience having worked as an operator in start-ups across high tech industrial manufacturing for solar and sustainable food retail. From 2012 onwards, Sidd has worked in private capital markets across Citibank and Jefferies, providing non-standard private debt financing to borrowers across infrastructure, real estate, lending platforms when traditional sources of capital were limited. Sidd holds a Bachelor of Technology in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from University of Pune, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill as a Fulbright scholar researching entrepreneurship and sustainability.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Nikhil is an inquisitive and passionate staff battery applications engineer at Gamma Technologies, with half a decade of experience in battery modeling and simulation. His background lies in fault detection, physics-based modeling, equivalent circuit models, reduced-order models, cell degradation, battery characterization, and state estimation. He earned his Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas, focusing on lithium-ion battery modeling. Nikhil's contributions include creating a new battery model that offers the same computational efficiency as commonly used equivalent circuit models while maintaining the fidelity of reduced-order models. At Gamma Technologies, he works closely on the development of various battery modeling capabilities, spanning from equivalent circuit models to 4D electrochemical solutions.

• Battery Safety

Dan Blondal is the CEO, Director, and Founder of Nano One. Mr. Blondal has 30+ years of experience as a professional engineer, managing high growth technology in a career that has spanned materials handling, medical devices, industrial printing, nuclear fusion and materials science. As Product and Technology Manager at Creo and Kodak, he led strategically vital initiatives valued at $20M annually to leverage software, laser and chemical systems for high-quality printing.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

No bio available.

• Battery Recycling

Emilie Bodoin is the Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Pure Lithium Corporation, a disruptive Boston based company established in late 2020 with Co-Founder and CSO, world renowned scientist, and MIT Emeritus Professor, Donald R. Sadoway. Pure Lithium is commercializing a next-generation lithium metal vanadium battery entirely sourced and produced in North America. Emilie is an inventor and successful entrepreneur with over 13 years of experience in lithium metal electrode and next-generation battery development. Emilie has 12 patents and patent applications. From 2015 to 2018, Emilie worked with Argonne National Laboratory as a Principal Investigator (PI) on a lithium metal R&D project. Additionally, she served as an Entrepreneur in Residence for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Emilie is a frequent speaker at worldwide lithium and battery industry events, including the 2023 and 2024 Future Minerals Forum in Ryiadh, Saudi Arabia. Emilie serves as a Director of the Sadoway Labs Foundation, which is funded by Eric Schmidt, founder of Google.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Toby Bond is an Industrial Scientist specializing in energy storage and X-ray imaging at the Canadian Light Source (CLS), Canada's national synchrotron facility. Toby completed his MSc in Jeff Dahn's lab at Dalhousie University, where he helped develop a prototype ultra high-precision coulometry system. He's since worked at the CLS for over 8 years, where he's worked with industrial clients in the energy storage sector to solve applied materials and cell engineering problems using synchrotron techniques. He is currently completing a PhD in Jeff Dahn's lab (while continuing in his role at the CLS) with a focus on the development of in situ computed tomography and x-ray diffraction techniques to characterize battery degradation and failure.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Mr. Boolish has served as Director of PRBA - The Rechargeable Battery Association, since 2023. Prior to his PRBA work, he held roles for 27 years at Energizer in Research and Development for lithium ion, lithium primary and dry cell battery chemistries, government affairs and standards for battery and chemical products. Mr. Boolish represents PRBA and its members in the United States and internationally on regulatory, legislative, and policy issues associated with the safety manufacturing, handing, transport, storage, and recycling of batteries. Members of PRBA include primary and secondary cell/battery manufacturers; battery recyclers; manufacturers of electronic equipment, medical devices, power tools, automobiles, dangerous good packaging, and outdoor power equipment; and retailers, testing labs, airlines, and dangerous goods consultants. Mr. Boolish can be reached for contact at the methods below: PRBA - The Rechargeable Battery Association 2050 M Street NW Washington, DC 20036 202-719-7170 mboolish@wiley.law

• TUT10: Latest Regulatory and Legislative Developments on the Safe Transport, Storage, Collection and Recycling of Lithium Batteries

Richard Bouveret has been the CEO & Chairman of Blue Solutions and Bluebus, both 100% subsidiaries of the Bolloré Group, since September 2022. Richard is a connoisseur of vehicles and their lifecycles, an expert in mechatronics and electrification, and a specialist in cutting-edge technologies. He has a keen interest in all innovations in this sector. Richard Bouveret joined the Bolloré Group at a pivotal moment for the Blue divisions: his mission is to make Blue Solutions and Bluebus leaders in the solid-state battery and electric bus markets. Richard Bouveret's passion for cars began when he was a child, thanks to the automobile manufacturers' manuals he inherited from his grandfather. An engineering graduate of the école Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy, he spent the last few decades with Valeo, then with the ZF Group, where he led talent and business development strategies, optimized the quality and costs of industrial operations, oversaw commercial transformations and steered merger and acquisition policies. With over 28 years of international automotive experience, Richard is recognized as a passionate and pragmatic leader who focuses on talent to create, execute, and monitor disruptive strategies aimed at delivering unique selling propositions to ensure short and medium-term sustainable sales outperformance, positive incremental margin, the right level of cash conversion and the most effective talent retention plan. Richard has accumulated a comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of the automotive sector. He is also highly visionary when it comes to structuring his business, thanks to his international experience in North America, Europe, Turkey, India, China, South-Korea, and Japan.

• AI for Energy Storage

Sean Brahim received his Ph.D. in Bioanalytical Chemistry from the University of the West Indies and did postdoctoral research at Virigina Commonwealth University on implantable biosensors and controlled drug delivery systems. Since joining YTC America, Inc. (YTCA) in 2006, Sean has worked as lead scientist on several nanomaterials-based projects including impedance gas sensors, conductive transparent coatings, and carbon nanotube synthesis and purification. In his present position, Sean manages the Energy Storage & Devices research and development activities at YTCA focusing on advanced technologies for performance improvements in clean energy generation and storage.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Dr. Mei Cai is the Senior Director of Battery Engineering at Fluence, a Siemens and AES company. She is responsible for the design, development, and implementation of battery energy storage systems including cell, module, and battery management systems. Before joining Fluence, she was the Director of Battery Materials and Systems Research at General Motors Global Research and Development Center, where she is responsible for innovations in advanced battery technologies for future electric vehicles.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Candace K. Chan is Navrotsky Professor of Materials Research and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, Arizona, where she has been a faculty member since 2011. Dr. Chan received her B.S. in chemistry from Rice University, Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University, and a Miller Research Fellowship to conduct postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Her group at ASU carries out research on next generation anode and cathode materials for lithium and sodium-ion batteries, foldable and flexible batteries, new synthesis methods for solid-state and ceramic electrolytes for lithium metal batteries, and new processes for recycling lithium-ion battery materials. Dr. Chan is also director of the ASU Battery Lab, which aims to support batteries-related workforce development and industry collaborations.

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

Roland Chavasse MBA is the Secretary General of the International Lithium Association (ILiA), the global industry body representing the lithium value chain, which he co-founded with Anand Sheth in 2021. Roland has a wealth of experience with rare and critical elements, including a decade of commercial experience working with tantalum, rhenium, cobalt, niobium and nickel-based superalloys. Since 2016 he has specialized in proactive metals association management, hosting conferences on four continents, managing responsible sourcing programs, editing trade journals and advocating for members’ interests. He has previously lead the Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center (T.I.C.) and the Minor Metals Trade Association (MMTA). He is based in London, UK.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

George Cintra serves as GM's Director of Global Battery R&D. Cintra leads GM’s comprehensive battery innovation strategy and portfolio across all business segments. He is a globally recognized battery expert with more than 30 years of leadership experience in energy storage technologies across consumer electronics, aerospace, defense, medical devices, and electric vehicles. Prior to joining GM, Cintra was CTO at EaglePicher Technologies where he led all engineering and technology initiatives for battery solutions in aerospace and defense. Prior to EaglePicher, he was Executive Vice President and CTO for Integer Holdings (formerly Greatbatch), a diverse medical device supplier, where he led global research, development, engineering and regulatory & clinical affairs serving implantable medical and portable power products in cardiac rhythum management, neuromodulation, surgical instrumenentation, and patient monitoring. Cintra began his career in batteries at Duracell, where he led the development and commissioning of the first lithium-ion cell production line in the US. He subsequently led numerous initiatives and organizations in battery related advanced materials, new product innovation and process development as part of Gillette and Procter & Gamble Co. Cintra has been awarded 39 patents in the U.S. and internationally across a broad range of power systems and electromechanical product innovations. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Cintra is a member of the USABC Management Council. He has also served as a Board Member for NanoGraf and Advastim, and is on the Advisory Boards of other energy-focused companies. Cintra also serves on the Chemical Engineering Advisory Board of the University of Rhode Island where is earned his B. S. in chemical engineering and completed graduate studies in chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Virginia.

• AI for Energy Storage

Anna is a fourth year PhD student in the Engineering and Public Policy Department at Carnegie Mellon University, advised by Dr. Jeremy Michalek. During her PhD, she has worked on a number of projects related to trends in automotive technology, including ridesharing and electrification. She has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech and has interned at companies across the energy industry, including Solar Turbines and TerraPower.

• Battery Recycling

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Lane is a research engineer working in Cockeysville, MD with a focus on sulfide solid-state batteries. He earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from University of Maryland, College Park. While studying at university, he was involved in undergraduate research focused on chemo-mechanical coupling of thin-film solid-state batteries.

• Battery Engineering

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.

• AI for Energy Storage

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 Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

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.

• TUT2: In-Depth Analysis of the Chinese xEV Battery Industry

Timothy DeBastos is managing director of LG Energy Solution North American Development (ESMI-D), the North American subsidiary of LG Energy Solution (LGES), based in Seoul, Korea. In this position, he has overall responsibility for strategic direction, development, launch, validation, and mass production. Prior to joining LGES, Mr. DeBastos worked at Rivian on HV Battery Electromechanical Design. Prior to that, he was chief engineer for high voltage pack and modules at LG Energy Solution. The majority of his over 20-year professional career was spent at Ford Motor Company, where he worked through various propulsion roles with increasing responsibility. He focused on EV commercial vehicles, integration, and implementation. Mr. DeBastos received a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Wayne State University and his Master of Business Administration from University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

• AI for Energy Storage

Nick is a graduate of the University of Oregon with a degree in Applied Business and Economics. With a strong background in sales and marketing, he works closely with customers to understand their unique battery testing needs and deliver tailored solutions that enhance efficiency and operations. By leveraging his expertise in business development and industry trends, Nick helps companies procure chambers and battery fixtures that accommodate their specific testing requirements, improving the efficiency of their testing operations.

• Battery Safety

Emily Dickens is the Chief Commercial Officer at Octet Scientific, Inc. , where she has spent the past six years supporting the aqueous battery industry through both product development and commercial leadership. With a background spanning a range of research in aqueous non-aqueous batteries, Emily brings deep technical insight and strategic vision to Octet’s mission of advancing electrolyte additive solutions for energy storage. Under her leadership, Octet is commercializing its technology across multiple applications, including large-scale energy storage, while building over 30 successful partnerships across the battery ecosystem. Emily’s expertise bridges technical innovation, market strategy, and client collaboration, enabling her to translate cutting-edge chemistry into real-world impact.

• Large-Scale Energy Storage

Hieu led the development of Dry Battery Electrode (DBE) manufacturing process at Maxwell Technologies beginning in 2011. He served as the Director of Electrode Engineering at Tesla for 4 years after its acquisition in 2019, driving scaling efforts leading to the commercialization of DBE. Currently, he is the Chief Manufacturing Officer at AM Batteries leading the development and commercialization of Powder-to-Electrode coating process and equipment for low-cost lithium-ion battery manufacturing.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Bonne Eggleston leads a global team developing, scaling, and producing Tesla's 4680 cells and battery materials. He led the effort to scale the dry electrode technology from lab scale to mass production, and founded the team that developed Tesla's tabless 4680 architecture. Prior to Tesla, he worked at two solar cell start-ups building technology and factories across four continents.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Christiane Essl is working as a lead researcher at the VIRTUAL VEHICLE in Austria on Battery Safety with the focus on vent gas analysis and early failure detection. In April 2021 she finished her Ph.D. work with the focus on the analysis and early detection of failing automotive lithium-ion batteries.

• Battery Safety

Dr. Chengcheng Fang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Michigan State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, San Diego, an M.Phil. in Innovative Technologies Leadership from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Zhejiang University. Dr. Fang’s research on advancing battery technologies bridges fundamental materials research and real-world application, spanning from multiscale, quantitative characterization for failure diagnostics, to the design of advanced materials and manufacturing processes. Her group addresses critical challenges in fast charging, extreme-temperature operation, energy-efficient manufacturing, and the seamless integration of new materials into commercial battery production. Her work has been supported by federal agencies and industry partners and published in leading journals such as Nature, Nature Energy. In 2022, Dr. Fang was named to the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 global list.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Mona Faraji Niri is a research focused Assistant Professor at WMG, University of Warwick. She has her PhD in control engineering. She is Fellow of Alan Turing Institution in Artificial Intelligence, and a MIET member. She also holds a Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). She is specialised in modelling, control and machine learning algorithms and has extensive experience in energy storage systems, li-ion batteries, battery management as well as electric vehicle powertrain. Her research interests also cover areas in optimization of battery manufacturing processes via machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Mona has been endorsed as Future Promise in this field by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2021. She was the recipient of the TechWomen100 UK award in 2021, and recognised as WMG early career researcher of year for 2022. Mona's research on the application of AI for li-ion battery manufacturing was selected to receive the postdoctoral research excellence award in 2022 and put her in the shortlist of the IET Sir Henry Royce achievement medal.

• AI for Energy Storage

Donal Finegan is a senior scientist at the US DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). His work focuses on understanding degradation and failure mechanisms of Li-ion batteries and taking steps to improve the performance and safety of cells and battery systems. Through his research, Donal pioneered the application of high-speed X-ray imaging to visualize rapid dynamic mechanisms that occur within Li-ion cells as they undergo thermal runaway. He collaborates extensively with the NASA Johnson Space Center on developing a Fractional Thermal Runaway Calorimeter (FTRC) and compiling data for the Battery Failure Databank, the largest open-source database on thermal runaway data from Li-ion cells. He received his B.Eng in Chemical Engineering from University College Dublin (UCD) and a Ph.D in Advanced Diagnostics of Batteries from University College London (UCL).

• Battery Safety

T. Joseph Fisher, IIICEO & Co - Founder, Lithium WerksT. Joseph (Joe) Fisher, III, is a proven global leader and international business executive with a track record of success in small and large companies. Fisher was a senior executive with Energizer Holdings for over thirty years, turning around several country units with international assignments in Argentina, South Africa, and Southern Europe, as well as serving as the General Manager & Vice President of the Global Carbon Products group, the Global Miniature Battery Group and Energizer Power Systems. He also served as CEO of Contour Energy Systems, a lithium battery spinout from Caltech, CEO and President of Valence Technologies, and then served as Interim President - Industrial, and Vice President Global Business Development for A123 Systems. He co-founded Lithium Werks in 2017 and led the leveraged buyouts of the A123 Systems Industrial division and Valence Technologies in 2018. Today, Lithium Werks is one of the world’s fastest growing producers and sellers of anodes, cathodes, cells and battery packs, with a focus on Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) solutions. He has been active in the battery industry working with technology startups, raw material companies and turnaround situations through his JCF International, LLC consulting business, and also served on the Board of Directors of several battery companies in the past. He holds a BS in Industrial Management degree from the University of Cincinnati and an MBA from Marshall University.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Fitzhugh is a Co-Founder and the CEO of Adden Energy, a Harvard University spin-off commercializing new solid-state battery technology. He earned his PhD in Applied Physics from Professor Xin Li’s group at Harvard University’s John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. During his graduate work, he was a co-inventor of the technology later licensed by Adden Energy, which focuses on critical market segments ranging from electric vehicles and power tools to consumer electronics. Before joining Adden Energy, Dr. Fitzhugh was an Entrepreneurial Fellow in the DOE’s Innovation Crossroads program housed at Oak Ridge National Lab.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

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.

• AI for Energy Storage

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. Frith is a principal at the US based venture capital firm, Volta Energy Technologies, where he works as part of the investment office. At volta, James identifies, diligences, underwrites and manages investments in growth-stage companies in the energy transition space. James has over 15 years of experience in the energy storage industry, which includes seven years working on lithium batteries in the laboratory before moving to BloombergNEF, where he led the company’s coverage of energy storage technologies and their associated supply chains. Using his in-depth knowledge and understanding of techno-economics, market dynamics and technology development, Dr. Frith has advised investors, governments, financial institutions, and the automotive and mining sectors as they position themselves for the low carbon economy. James holds a Ph.D in Electrochemistry from the University of Southampton.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Advised clients on both short- and long-term growth strategy while bridge-making between Asian-USA/European companies as a management consultant for 20 years. Expertise Area: Business strategy, Transformation, Cross border M&A, Business Due Diligence, Alliance advisory & PMI (Post Merger Integration). Industries: Chemical / materials and automotive / auto-parts / aerospace industries including lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle.

• Battery Recycling

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. Prashant Gargh is a Senior Customer Cell Quality Engineer at Panasonic Energy, specializing in lithium-ion battery reliability, safety, and testing. He earned his PhD at Iowa State University, conducted research at Ames National Laboratory, and has industry experience in EV battery manufacturing at Tesla. His work spans electrochemical testing, lithium plating analysis, advanced battery characterization, battery recycling , and critical material recovery.

• Battery Safety

Bharat Gattu is Senior Researcher in Batteries and Energy Storage at Nissan Technical Center - North America. With background in metallurgical, materials science and chemical engineering his research is focused on material and cell development for LIBs. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Pittsburgh, M.S. in Materials Science & Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology, MO, USA (previously University of Missouri, Rolla) and Bachelor's in Metallurgical & Materials Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India. He had a brief programming stint in Accenture and was involved in entrepreneurial debut as Asset and Technology Development Manager in deep sea diving, offshore/marine manufacturing.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Matthew Genovese is a Director of Cell Development at QuantumScape, focused on process scale-up for full cell assembly. Over his time with the company, he’s worked on cell-level R&D that delivered successive generations on QuantumScape’s technology roadmap. He has over 10 years experience in developing lithium-ion batteries and next-generation cell architectures. Prior to QuantumScape, Matthew conducted lithium ion and lithium-metal battery research in Jeff Dahn’s group at Dalhousie University and earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of Toronto.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

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.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Nick Giefer is the General Manager of the Business Unit - Battery. This new focus was launched in October 2024, and Nick is responsible for Coperion’s success across the globe. Prior to the business unit formation, Nick was Vice-President of Sales for Coperion’s Chemical and Plastics business. Nick’s experience and development of project management teams carries over into the growth of the battery focus.

Contact Information: Nick Giefer General Manager of the Business Unit - Battery Coperion 7901 NW 107th Terrace Kansas City MO 64153 +1 816-891-9300 nick.giefer@coperion.com www.coperion.com

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

John Glassmire brings two decades of experience at the frontiers of the energy transition to help organizations leverage digital innovation to enable an electrified future. He is passionate about advancing electricity as the bedrock of modern business and a sustainable future. John’s experience spans research, portfolio strategy, and innovation acceleration, to solve today’s most pressing energy challenges. John’s leadership impact includes several years as director of energy engineering at a successful microgrid software start-up, more than a decade of global consultative solutioning experience, and several years in product management. John understands that lifelong learning and active engagement are critical to solving the most pressing energy challenges; he has facilitated hundreds of workshops and led the creation of a University of Washington course on distributed renewable power systems for power utility leaders to catalyze access to clean, low-cost, reliable power. John holds a BSME from Rice University and an MSME from Northwestern University.

• AI for Energy Storage

Dr. Stephen Glazier is the Director, Cell Technology at NOVONIX Battery Technology Solutions in Nova Scotia, Canada. He oversees the technical development of NOVONIX Ultra-High Precision Coulometry as well as cell prototyping and testing programs which span the entire battery field, including NOVONIX’s own materials and customer programs. Prior to NOVONIX, Stephen completed his MSc and PhD at Dalhousie University, working under the supervision of Dr. Jeff Dahn, with a focus on high-precision metrology, cathode material synthesis, and electrolyte development.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Tobias Glossmann is a Principal Engineer at Mercedes-Benz R&D North America and works on battery research from material level to vehicle integration for more than 20 years. He is engaged in community education as an officer of the Detroit section of the Electrochemical Society. His current research interests include Li-metal batteries and interfaces in batteries and electrochemical sensors.

• 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

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: Economics of Battery Material Development & Manufacturing

Thomas Greszler manages R&D for Saft America focusing on Li-ion cell development for specialty markets such as military, aerospace, and performance racing.

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

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

Data Scientist on Charging & Energy Solutions at Rivian developing AI-driven solutions for reducing costs and carbon emissions across fast charging infrastructure, home charging, and vehicle-to-grid technologies.

• AI for Energy Storage

Amanda Hall is the CEO and Founder of Summit Nanotech. Amanda spent years in the oil and gas industry and identified the opportunity to make a significant impact with clean energy. She is a graduate from University of Toronto - Trinity College with a BSc Biology major and a double minor in Physics and English. She later graduated from the University of Calgary with a BSc Geophysics and has a passion for the environment. Amanda is on the Advisory Board for Canadian Energy & Climate Nexus (CECN) and sits on the Board of the Chilean Clean Technology Institute. She is a mentor for Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (CSEG) and contributes to the arts as a member of the Board of Directors for the Calgary Opera.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

With experience in the battery industry for the past 10 years, Phil Hamilton has researched and tested various battery chemistries for both start-up material companies and established corporations in motive, ESS, and consumer electronic markets. As Senior Manager of Battery Characterization, he leads the Surface Battery Characterization Lab for Microsoft towards new chemistry qualifications and strategic performance explorations. His work focuses on the various applications of data science to create throughput and testing efficiencies as well as providing rich metadata for context-focused characterization.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

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 Engineering

No bio available.

• 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.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Gustavo M. Hobold is the CTO of Elementium Materials. Elementium is reshaping the battery landscape by developing ultra-high performance low cost drop-in electrolytes that mitigate the failure mechanisms of legacy carbonate-based electrolytes and unlock the next generation of battery chemistries. We are supporting over 40+ customer pilots across the globe across all lithium and sodium cell chemistries. Gustavo obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), from which he received the ECS Battery Division Student Research Award. His work focuses on electrolyte discovery for next-generation rechargeable batteries that can replace carbonate-based electrolytes at scale and enable emerging battery materials with no trade-offs in performance. His research has resulted in the development of new classes of electrolytes and a series of experimental high-throughput techniques for electrolyte screening and characterization.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

For nearly a decade, Ken Hoffman led McKinsey's global battery value chain work from capital raising and strategy advice to go-to-market work. He has assisted top private equity firms on more than 100 due diligence projects. Today, Ken sits on the Board of NEO Battery Materials, serves as an advisor to the CEOs of Pure Lithium and IBC Advanced Technologies, and is the commodity strategist for Canada's Redcloud Securities. He has been a keynote speaker at PDAC, Future Minerals Forum, FastMarkets, AABC, NAATBATT, LME, SMM, etc., as well as on the advisory Board for "The Battery Show". He was asked by the Chamber of Commerce forum in Washington, DC, to talk about batteries to more than 300 global CEO's. Before McKinsey, Ken had worked in financial markets as a portfolio manager and director of research among other roles.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

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 Battery Manufacturing Production

James Hoxey is a commercial and strategy leader in advanced electrification with 15+ years’ experience delivering battery programmes for BMW, Anglo American and McLaren, as well as advisory roles spanning automotive, aerospace and defence. Formerly Head of Business Development at Williams Advanced Engineering (now Fortescue Zero), he has shaped multi-sector programmes from high-performance automotive to megawatt-scale systems, bridging technology, supply chain, and market adoption.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

Mr. Luke Hu co-founded Electroder, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer focuses on battery cell design and development. He is currently focusing on building the company's global business and advising Electroder's clients in planning and executing electrode and cell assembly development projects. Mr. Hu has been leading his team completing various cell R&D projects, developing advanced design tools, and building new cell development process. Under his leadership, Electroder joined the Global Battery Alliance as its first member focusing on battery design and development in 2022. Before co-founding Electroder, Mr. Hu had a decade of experience in manufacturing and technology and held a variety of management roles globally. Mr. Hu graduated with an MBA degree from Cornell University and a bachelor’s degree of engineering from Beijing University of Technology.

• TUT4: Virtual Analysis of Cell Aging and Cell Behaviors for the Selection and Development of Long-Life Cells

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Wenjiao Huang is a Principal Battery Data Scientist at Fluence. With a PhD in Chemical Engineering and a Master's in Computer Science, she specializes in applying machine learning and battery physics to improve battery performance, predict life trajectories, and advance safety diagnostics, especially in BESS.

• AI for Energy Storage

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

In my capacities as a professor, author and President of Boston Strategies International, I help asset owners, investors and operators of strategic power and transport projects achieve lowest total supply chain cost, considering risk, risk and agility. My clients have included the US Department of Transportation, the US Department of Energy, Mercedes-Benz, BP, Saudi Aramco, BASF, Alcoa, Iberdrola, Vattenfall, FedEx, UPS, CSX, Maersk, Iron Mountain, Siemens, Raytheon, Valeo, and the City of New York, to name a few. I teach Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, and Decarbonizing Global Supply Chains at NYU’s graduate business and engineering schools and at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school and graduate environmental studies program, and I've written eight books on supply chain, operations management, and supply chain decarbonization. Occasionally I help to mediate operations-related contracts, claims and disputes.

• TUT9: Predictive Analytics and AI in Inventory Optimization, Demand Planning and Forecasting

Sam Jaffe is the principal at 1019 Technologies. 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.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Meng Jiang is a staff researcher at GM R&D and the chair of the technical advisory committee at USABC. She received her Ph.D in chemistry from Stony Brook University and has 20 years of experience in lithium ion battery research and development.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

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.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Nathan B. Johnson completed his Doctorate in Chemical Engineering under Dr. Paul Albertus at University of Maryland, College Park in Spring 2023, and his Postdoc at Sandia National Laboratories under Dr. Loraine Torres-Castro and Dr. Alex M. Bates in January 2025. Since then, he has worked as a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories in the Power Sources R&D organization. For the last 7 years, he has worked on safety, reliability, and diagnostics for a wide variety of primary and rechargeable battery chemistries from the materials-scale up to the pack-level. His primary focus is developing a predictive battery safety testing method through coupling materials-scale tests with numerical modeling.

• Battery Engineering

Jeff Johnson has nearly 25 years of investment, entrepreneurship and corporate experience across climate and technology. Jeff is a General Partner at the global multi-stage investment firm B Capital where he leads the firm’s growing climate investment team. He most recently served as a Managing Director at Temasek leading the sustainable investing team for the global investment firm. Prior to Temasek, Jeff ran a boutique advisory business focused on scaling of sustainable businesses. He also co-founded and was on the Board of Xpansiv, the world's leading provider of market infrastructure for environmental commodities. Jeff worked in innovation business development at ABB between 2012 to 2014, leading growth initiatives for new sustainable products and services. Earlier in his career, he held several leadership and business development roles at various companies, including Better Place, Vendavo, and Intel Corporation. Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from University of Florida and a Master of Science in Engineering Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. Jungjohann joined NREL in 2021, after starting her career within DOE’s Nanoscale Science Research Centers, including the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials. Her research began with liquid-cell scanning / transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM) of nanoparticle synthesis and catalytic nanoparticles. During her tenure at Sandia National Laboratories, she worked heavily on Li-metal anode characterization using in-situ electrochemical S/TEM and cryogenic electron microscopy methods. Dr. Jungjohann supported research on an array of user projects that required in-situ S/TEM (electrical biasing, electrochemistry, heating, heating in liquids, cryogenic temperatures, straining, and environmental TEM). She now supports her group as a manger in providing advanced multiscale and multimodal microscopy and imaging characterization to NREL and NREL’s collaborators.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Karthik Kadirvel is the Director of Battery Engineering and Technologies at Reality Lab in Meta. His team is responsible for designing, qualifying, and mass producing batteries for AI glasses, mixed reality headsets, controllers, and neural input devices. He is also responsible for defining the battery technology roadmap for new chemistries, form factors, and algorithms.

• 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 improve 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

Sungkwon Kang is a Director with LG Technology Ventures. Sungkwon has held various roles within LG Group, including global business development at LG Chem and open innovation and business development at LG Technology Center of America. Sungkwon was also a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. Sungkwon received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Cornell University and B.S. in mechanical engineering and applied computational mathematics from Virginia Tech.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

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.

• TUT8: Li-ion Cell Design and Manufacturing

Brandon Kelly is the Vice President of Cell at Peak Energy, where he leads the development and scaling of advanced battery technologies. With a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and a specialization in energy storage from Colorado State University, Brandon has extensive experience in battery material science, characterization, and product development. Prior to joining Peak Energy, he played a key role at Solid Power, where he spearheaded multi-million-dollar efforts to scale solid-state battery production for automotive applications. Brandon’s work is driven by a passion for building effective development teams and a deep understanding of battery technologies. His expertise includes launching new products, managing large-scale projects, and fostering collaborative, innovative work environments to accelerate the development of hard tech solutions.

• Large-Scale Energy Storage

Ms. King leads Advanced Battery Strategy for LEAP Manufacturing, supporting government, startups, and academia through the BEACONS project at the University of Texas, Dallas. She is a Chemical Engineer, with over 30 years experience in cell development, and has held leadership roles at Northvolt, Stanley Black & Decker, and Teledyne.

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

Recognized for his impressive more than 30-year career as an expert in the critical minerals industry and global operations, David brings his unparalleled experience and knowledge to his role as Chief Executive Officer and President of Cirba Solutions. Cirba Solutions is the most experienced and premier service provider in the battery recycling materials and management industry. With 7 strategic locations, Cirba Solutions is taking batteries at end-of-life, processing them to refine critical materials, and putting battery-grade salts back into the domestic supply chain. Leading the strategic growth of Cirba Solutions, Klanecky led a capital raise securing almost $300 million dollars and won 3 significant Department of Energy grants of more than $282 million in his first few years with the organization. Coordinating with both private and public sectors, David is focused on expanding operational and technology capabilities and increasing the domestic capacity to process lithium-ion batteries to support the growing needs of the circular battery supply chain. David is the current President of NAATBatt International, sits on the External Advisory Committee for the Advanced Energy Technologies Directorate of the Department of Energy’s, Argonne National Laboratory, and is a Board Director for NanoGraf. Prior to his time at Cirba Solutions, Klanecky served as Executive Vice President and COO of Piedmont Lithium, where he helped build one of North America’s largest lithium company. From 2013 to 2021, David served in increasingly senior management roles within the Albemarle Corporation, the world’s leading lithium producer, including VP of Strategy and Corporate Development and as Vice President - Lithium Operations and Commercial teams with global responsibility for Albemarle’s manufacturing/operations, process technology, and product management within the global lithium business. He also served as the CEO of the MARBL joint venture between Albemarle and Mineral Resources Ltd., which includes the Kemerton and Wodgina assets in Australia. David also had a notable 20-year career with The Dow Chemical Company that spanned the globe including expat assignments in Spain, Switzerland, and China across a number of innovative industries. In his last role with Dow, he launched the Dow Energy Materials Business, focused on Lithium-Ion Battery Materials offerings for cell manufacturers and Automotive OEMs.  David is a Chemical Engineer with an Executive MBA from Arizona State/Thunderbird School of Global Management.

• 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).

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Chetan is a Principal and Head of Research & Diligence at Third Derivative (D3), RMI's global climate tech accelerator and innovation engine, where he advanced RMI's work on battery technologies, and been responsible for evaluating innovative companies in cell manufacturing, new chemistries and components globally for the D3 program. Prior to joining D3, Chetan was a venture capital investor with 3i Partners (a technology-for-impact fund in India), and has previously worked with both the World Bank and IFC, and with the Harvard Business School's Laboratory for Innovation Sciences. He holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and a master's in Technology Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

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. Simran Kumari is a Senior Research Scientist at Nissan North America, where she leads the development of next-generation cathode materials and advanced algorithms for Battery Management Systems (BMS). With a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from UCLA, her work focuses on leveraging AI, simulation, and predictive health modeling to enhance the performance and safety of lithium-based battery technologies. Dr. Kumari has authored numerous publications in top-tier journals and holds several patents related to battery chemistry and electrolyte formulations, bridging the gap between fundamental materials science and practical system-level applications.

• Battery Engineering

Dr. Joshua Lamb is currently serving as a Special Scientific Advisor for Power and Energy with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. He is on assignment from Sandia National Laboratories where he primarily led the energy storage safety program. Dr. Lamb earned his Ph.D. in Metallurgical Engineering in 2008 and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 2002 from the University of Nevada. Since joining Sandia in 2011, Joshua’s research interests include advanced techniques for determining the stability of lithium-ion batteries and the development of advanced battery abuse and safety tests.

• Battery Safety

Recognized for more than 25 years of developing and commercializing lithium-ion batteries, Dr. Christina Lampe-Onnerud is Founder and CEO of Cadenza Innovation, a growth-stage company transforming energy storage for grid, EV, commercial and industrial, and urban battery deployments. Previously, Dr. Lampe-Onnerud was Founder, CEO, and International Chairman of Boston-Power, a battery company providing products to the consumer electronics, transportation, and other end markets. Earlier in her career, Dr. Lampe-Onnerud held executive positions with Bridgewater Associates and Arthur D. Little, where she led the world’s largest non-captive battery lab. A two-time World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and former co-chair of its Global Future Councils, Dr. Lampe-Onnerud is a co-chair of Li-Bridge, a public-private alliance convened by the U.S. Department of Energy to accelerate the creation of a robust domestic manufacturing base and supply chain for lithium-based batteries. She is also a former board director with the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology (NY-BEST) Consortium, a coalition working to build a vibrant, world-class, advanced battery and energy storage sector in New York State. Dr. Lampe-Onnerud holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Uppsala University, Sweden, conducted post-doctoral work at MIT and currently sits on MIT’s Chemistry Department Visiting Committee.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

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.

• AI for Energy Storage

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Weihan Li is a Junior Professor in Artificial Intelligence and Digitalization for Batteries at RWTH Aachen University, where he leads a research group within the Center for Ageing, Reliability, and Lifetime Prediction of Electrochemical and Power Electronic Systems (CARL). He completed his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology with summa cum laude at RWTH Aachen in 2021, after earning an M.Sc. in Automotive Engineering and Transport in 2017. Prof. Li’s research focuses on leveraging artificial intelligence and physics to drive digitalization in battery technology. He has conducted research at renowned institutions such as Imperial College London and MIT. With over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, numerous patents, and more than €6M in research funding from sources including the BMBF, BMWK, BMDV, EU, and industry partners, his work has garnered international recognition. Prof. Li has received prestigious honors, including the Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher 2024, the BMBF BattFutur Starting Grant (€2M+), the German Thesis Award from the Körber Foundation, the Reichart Prize, the vgbe Innovation Prize, the Battery Young Research Award, the Umbrella Award, and the RWTH Innovation Award, etc.

• AI for Energy Storage

Dr. Yun (April) Li is a Senior Battery Development Engineer at Microsoft, where she leads cell-level innovation in battery technologies to meet the performance demands of Surface and Windows-based consumer devices. Her work focuses on developing new battery architectures and advancing high-power, high-energy solutions for next-gen consumer electronics. She earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Washington in 2019, with research spanning materials development and characterization for aqueous Zn-MnO2, Li-S, and Solid-State Li-ion battery systems. April also serves as the Chair of the Electrochemical Society (ECS), Pacific Northwest Section, where she supports technical outreach and fosters community engagement in electrochemical science.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Yuandan Li leads Battery Reliability Engineering for Google's multiple product categories: Pixel phone, watch, tablet, and Nest smart home devices. She is keen in evaluating potential battery risks early to inform module design and system integration even before the first system prototype build. Prior to Google, Yuandan contributed to MacBook battery reliability at Apple and tool reliability at Baker Hughes. She holds a PhD in Reliability Engineering from the University of Maryland and a BS in Engineering Physics from Tsinghua University.

• Battery Engineering

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 applications. He has been with Evonik Corporation for 14 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.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

Tongchao Liu is currently a chemist in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He received his PhD degree from Peking University. His research interests are focused on the interface of electrochemistry, cathode materials, and materials characterization, in particular, concentration gradient cathode design and fundamental understanding of failure chemistries through in situ synchrotron-based X-ray techniques. He is currently serving as editor in the high-impact journals of Nano Energy and Materials Today Energy.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Annie Liu is a seasoned executive, having spent 20+ years in building and leading teams across stages from product incubation to rapid growth and scale-up in mature markets. Annie was the Executive Director at Ford (Model E). Prior to her role at Ford, Annie forged and managed Tesla’s multi-billion-dollar strategic partnerships and sourcing portfolios that support Tesla’s Energy and Battery business units including Battery, Battery Raw Material, Energy Storage, Solar and Solar Glass, including raw materials sourcing efforts such as lithium for battery cells. Earlier in her career, she held various leading manufacturing and procurement roles at Microsoft launching advanced technology products. Annie is a co-founder of Alto Group Inc, a trusted advisor and counsellor to many of the world’s influential businesses in the EV value chain. Annie is also currently a Non-Executive Director with ASX Listed Vulcan Energy Limited, and a Non-Executive Director with ASX Listed Alpha HPA Limited.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. Haodong Liu is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Tyfast. He is also Activate Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Before Tyfast, he was Project Scientist at UCSD’s Center for Memory and Recording Research. He is an expert in a variety of the electrochemical systems, from design, synthesis, processing, and characterization of advanced electrode materials for LIB and novel electrolytes for Li-metal batteries. He published more than 120 papers with more than 10,000 citations and 7 patents. He is the co-inventor of the disordered rocksalt lithium vanadium oxide anode material, the core technology of Tyfast.

• 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.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

Christopher currently leads industrial hygiene programs across several Tesla, Inc. facilities including LFP Battery Manufacturing, Cell Recycling/GFNV, and SEMI Factory in Sparks, NV, and the Megafactories in Lathrop, CA and Houston, TX. With more than eight years of experience in heavy-production and high-volume manufacturing settings, he excels at translating complex chemical and physical exposure data into strategic, risk mitigating recommendations-enabling a safe and healthy work environment for employees. Prior to his tenure at Tesla, Christopher worked as an industrial hygienist/chemical engineer at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, WA, where he honed his skills in hazard recognition, exposure assessment, and control-strategy implementation in a rigorous operational environment. He also proudly serves as an Officer in the Army National Guard, bringing discipline, leadership and real-world operational experience to his profession in occupational health.

• Battery Safety

Dr. Jessica Durham Macholz is The Critical Materials Program Lead for the Applied Materials Division at Argonne National Laboratory. She received her PhD in Chemistry from Stony Brook University in 2016 and joined Argonne as a postdoc in 2017. Jessica works in Argonne's Materials Engineering Research Facility (MERF) developing cost-effective processes for recovering and recycling critical materials. She is a lead investigator in DOE’s ReCell Center for advanced battery recycling where she investigates safe and cost-effective recycling processes for lithium-ion batteries, specifically with respect to cell pre-processing, cathode/anode separation, cathode/cathode separation, extraction of critical materials from waste streams, and investigating the effect of impurities in recycled material. She is also the co-lead for Extraction and Separations in DOE's Minerals to Materials Supply Chain Research Facility (METALLIC). Jessica’s research currently focuses on developing and validating recovery and recycling technologies and conducting process R&D and scale-up of materials through collaborations with industry, academia, and other national laboratories.

• Battery Recycling

David Mackanic is the CEO and co-founder of Anthro Energy. David received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. He is listed on Forbes 30 under 30 and MIT’s 35 Innovators under 35 for his work on polymer electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries. David has authored over 20 academic papers with over 4,500 citations total. David has served as CEO of Anthro from inception through recent milestones including raising a $20M Series A and obtaining UN 38.3 certification of cells containing Anthro technology.

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

Arumugam Manthiram is the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Endowed Chair of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin). He served as the Director of Texas Materials Institute at UT-Austin for 11 years during 2011-2022. After receiving his PhD in chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1981 and working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and at UT-Austin, he became a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UT-Austin in 1991. He has authored 900 journal articles with 95,000 citations and an h-index of 152. He has mentored 300 students and postdoctoral researchers, including the graduation of 69 PhD students. Dr. Manthiram is a recipient of the Battery Division Research Award and Technology Award and the Henry B. Linford Award for Distinguished Teaching from the Electrochemical Society, and the International Battery Association Research Award. He delivered the 2019 Chemistry Nobel Prize Lecture in Stockholm on behalf of Professor John Goodenough.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Amy Marschilok is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY, where she is an Adjunct Faculty in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical and Molecular Engineering and Co-Director of the Institute of Sustainability, Electrification and Energy (I:SEE). Dr. Marschilok holds a Joint Appointment at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where she serves as Energy Storage Division Manager and Energy Systems Division Manager in the Interdisciplinary Science Department. She also serves as Director for the Center for Mesoscale Transport Properties (http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/m2m/index.html), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Marschilok was previously employed as a Senior Scientist in the Medical Battery Research and Development group at Greatbatch Inc. in Clarence NY, where she was recognized as a Visionary of the Year. Her current research centers on electrochemistry-based and -coupled characterization approaches; materials and electrode concepts for high power, high energy density, extended life batteries; and operando investigations of energy storage materials and systems. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry and the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

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

Naoki Matsumura is a Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation, responsible for battery algorithm development in charging and CPU turbo-boost, and new battery chemistry enabling for mobile devices, datacenters, and Internet-Of-Things (IOT) devices. He is frequently invited to international conferences to speak on battery topics such as machine-learning/deep-learning based battery charging algorithm. He also teaches batteries and AI (machine learning and deep learning) at San Jose State University as an adjunct faculty, where he also serves as a Materials Engineering Industry Advisory Council member. Prior to that, he held battery research and development roles at Panasonic Corporation. He earned his MS in Energy Science from Kyoto University and holds many patents. He is the author of "Practical Battery Design and Control", a peer-reviewed battery book published from Artech House in Feb.'23.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Seasoned service professional with over 24 years of experience in electrical/electronic and mechanical systems within both military and industrial environments. Skilled in data analysis, system troubleshooting, and implementing effective maintenance programs to ensure operational reliability and efficiency.

• AI for Energy Storage

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

Rory is the Senior Technology & Market Analyst at Anaphite, a dry electrode manufacturing company that is scaling it's Dry Cathode Precursor (DCP) technology for large-scale commercial delivery by 2028. Rory works across the commercial and operations teams with his core responsibilities including the development and maintenance of internal cost modelling and exploring commercial partnership opportunities.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Urvi Mehta is a senior research associate at Lux Research, based in Houston, where she conducts analysis and provides insights into the energy storage sector. Urvi provides subject-matter expertise spanning a wide array of emerging storage technologies, including Li-ion batteries, solid-state batteries, and other novel battery chemistries. This coverage expands to the entire value chain, including battery recycling, the regulatory landscape, and the shifting business models shaping the future of energy. Urvi’s role at Lux entails advising leaders in the chemicals, utilities, and oil and gas industries to effectively navigate and capitalize on the opportunities inherent in this rapidly evolving sector. Before joining Lux, Urvi worked as a research analyst at Customized Energy Solutions, where she delivered high-impact market analyses and strategic consulting in the field of microgrids, electric vehicles, and energy storage to C-suite executives. Urvi holds an M.Sc. in business analytics from the University of Houston and an MTech in energy systems and technology from Pandit Deendayal Energy University, India, which provided her experience in and understanding of grid modernization and government policies.

• 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

Celina Mikolajczak is a Licensed Mechanical Engineer who has spent 25 years working in the battery industry including senior roles at Exponent, Tesla, Uber, Panasonic, QuantumScape, and Lyten. She has significant experience across the battery industry including in materials development, cell R&D, cell design, pack design, cell & pack manufacturing, failure analysis, factory planning, safety testing & regulatory requirements, especially fire codes related to batteries. Celina is currently on sabbatical and advising companies throughout the battery ecosystem including Voltaiq, Manaflex, VTA Technologies, and Battery Associates.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Ines Miller is leading the team of battery technology for P3 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 Battery Manufacturing Production

Bruce has worked in the electronic industry for 35 years with experience in design of military, commercial and consumer products. He holds Master’s degrees in Business, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering with extensive mathematical training. For the last 22 years, he has worked at Dell computer as a Power Technologist, battery technologist, battery engineer and battery subject matter expert. He is currently the lead Product Safety investigator for Dell Technologies and is a member of UL STP 1624 Lithium Batteries.

• Battery Power for Consumer Electronics

Dr. R. Mohtadi is a Senior Principal Scientist at the materials research department at Toyota Research Institute of North America TRINA and has been in the decarbonization R&D field for over two decades. She has been spearheading and leading research for the creation, design and demonstration of materials for chemical and electrochemical energy storage technologies, including the research of novel battery electrolyte chemistries for liquid and solid-state batteries, and has contributed important advancements in these areas. She has published influential research and has been awarded over 30 patents. Notable recognitions include receiving the R&D100 award (2011) and being named in “40 under 40” by the Automotive and Crain’s news (2014). She was recognized and showed cased in the “We Run on Brain Power” initiative by the State Governor in 2015 as a face of cutting edge innovation in the State of Michigan, USA.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

William Mustain is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Director of the Carolina Institute for Battery Innovation. He works in several areas related to electrochemical energy generation and storage, including: high capacity materials for Li-ion batteries, novel electrode structures for Li-S batteries, battery recycling, corrosion and passivation of materials, etc. He has published over 160 peer reviewed articles (h-index 56) and has over 100 invited lectures. He has served as the chair of the Energy Technology Division of the Electrochemical Society and AIChE Area 1E: Electrochemical Fundamentals. He has been the recipient of several awards including the U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Award, Electrochemical Society Energy Technology Research Award and Fulbright Scholar Fellowship. Greg Less is the Director of the U-M Battery Lab. He is an expert in battery pilot cell development and manufacturing and he responsible for the day-to-day operations of the U-M Battery Lab facility. Greg received a doctorate in Chemistry from U-M. Prior to founding the Battery Lab, he was a UM research scientist and worked at battery companies T/J Technologies and A123 Systems.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

No bio available.

• Battery Safety

Johanna Nelson Weker is a lead scientist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and heads the Hard X-ray Materials Science group at SSRL. She also serves as assistant director of the DOE’s Aqueous Battery Consortium. Johanna uses powerful synchrotron X-rays to uncover how energy storage materials work under real-world conditions, with the goal of advancing clean energy technologies. Her research spans from pioneering studies of batteries in action to developing new 3D imaging techniques that reveal what traditional methods cannot.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Marcel Neubert obtained his degree in physics from Dresden Technical University in 2007. He then joined Centrotherm-FHR, a leading supplier of vacuum coating equipment. From 2010 to 2013, Neubert conducted his doctoral research at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), where he received his doctorate in the field of nanotechnology and nano analytics. After completing his PhD, he was in charge of developing flash lamp annealing (FLA) processes and systems at ROVAK GmbH, paving the way for their industrial application in large-area thin-film technologies. His work established new methods for high-tech material processing and opened possibilities for applications in the semiconductor, photovoltaic, and decorative coating industries. Neubert has gained extensive experience working with international partners in Japan, the United States and Taiwan in the field of material development. This has further expanded his understanding of thin-film applications in high-tech industries. In 2020, Neubert co-founded NorcSi GmbH and continues to serve as its Chief Technology Officer. The award-winning start-up has secured substantial backing from both private and public investors. Utilizing patented flash-lamp technology, the company is at the forefront of battery innovation through the development of cost-effective and highly scalable pure-silicon anodes.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Tan Nguyen serves as the Director of the Battery Cell Plant at Packet Digital. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrochemistry from the University of British Columbia and brings over a decade of experience in lithium-ion battery research, product development, and manufacturing. His expertise spans new battery chemistries, cell design, and large-scale production processes. At Packet Digital, Dr. Nguyen leads the establishment of the company’s lithium-ion pouch cell manufacturing facility, overseeing multiple aspects of factory design, equipment selection, and process implementation to ensure the successful launch of a world-class domestic cell production line.

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

Dr. Hailong Ning is the Co-founder and CEO of VTA Technology. He has 15 years of experience in the battery industry, from battery materials, cell development to large-scale battery manufacturing. Prior to founding VTA, he served as VP of Battery Engineering at NIO and General Manager of Battery Engineering at Panasonic Energy of North America respectively, where he had direct experiences of building gigafactories in both the US and China. He obtained his Ph.D degree in Materials Sciences & Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

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

Dr Conor O'Brien is a Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx, predominantly concerned with the topic of advanced materials, from novel nanomaterials to the utilisation of emerging materials and technologies in a wide range of applications. Having previously studied at Trinity College Dublin, Conor obtained a PhD from the University of Manchester, working in the National Graphene Institute.

• Next-Generation Battery Research

Joe O'Connor is the Director of ESS Solutions at Nuvation Energy with over a decade of experience in renewable energy product development. He holds two solar energy patents and authored the best-selling book 'Off Grid Solar.' Joe has expertise in solar energy, battery manufacturing, and energy storage systems, and he assists organizations in developing advanced battery solutions. He holds a master's in Manufacturing Engineering from NYU.

• Large-Scale Energy Storage

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. In addition he serves as the managing partner of Code Concepts Group, a leading building and fire safety consulting firm

• Battery Safety

Alexander Onz is heading the position as Technical Program Manager for Delfort´s IonPort Separators. In this role, he oversees all technical and product-related topics and acts as the key point of contact for customers. Before taking on this position, Alexander led Delfort's entire Technical Sales for the Tobacco Division as Head of Technical Customer Service for several years. He has an academic background and professional experience in both technical and legal fields, as well as extensive expertise in the specialty paper industry.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

With over twelve years in the lithium industry, Ashish Patki leads business development and market intelligence at Livent. Livent’s portfolio of performance lithium compounds have applications in energy storage, polymers, aerospace alloys, and automotive and industrial greases. Ashish previously worked in biofuels and solar industries in engineering and commercial roles. Ashish holds a BS, chemical engineering from University of Pune, India, and MBA from Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. He lives in Charlotte.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

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.

• Large-Scale Energy Storage

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 on energy efficient technologies including electrified vehicles. Until 2017, Ahmad led 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 as technical advisor to the Battery program supporting battery processing, extreme fast charging, and recycling. Ahmad is leading a project for NHTSA on understanding of root causes of fire for EVs after submersion in seawater due to hurricanes. He also leads a project for NAATBatt on upgrading the North American lithium-ion battery supply chain database. Ahmad has an advisory role for Heat Sync, a startup company engaged in battery thermal management and safety design and implementation.

• Battery Engineering

Daniele Pia is the Team Lead for the Data Science and Analytics team at LG Energy Solution Vertech, where he leads the development of advanced AI and machine learning solutions to optimize the performance and reliability of large-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems. With over a decade of experience applying data science and predictive modeling across complex technical domains, he specializes in time series analysis, anomaly detection, and scalable MLOps design. Beyond industry, Daniele has served as an AI instructor for several universities, teaching applied machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI to the next generation of data professionals.

• AI for Energy Storage

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 Engineering

Tomasz Poznar, Ph.D. joined the Ascend Elements in 2021. He has diverse battery industry experience in multiple functional areas, including strategic planning, products and new business development. He came to Ascend Elements from A123 Systems, where he was responsible for corporate strategy and business development. His previous experience includes various executive roles and years of lithium-ion battery and vehicle electrification experience with EnerDel, Delco Remy and Volvo. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Wroclaw University of Science and Technology in Poland.

• 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.

• Battery Safety

Gerardo Rebollar is the America region General Manager of Energy Storage business in Saft America Inc. A company of TotalEnergies. The scope covers from Alaska to Argentina and the markets served are Utility, Commercial & Industrial for the renewable resources integration and for grid stability applications with batteries. Gerardo has 36 years of experience in the Energy, Renewables, Electrical, Industrial automation sectors and has collaborated for companies such as GE, Alstom, Areva and Schneider Electric in roles as innovation VP, roadmap and new product development leader and executive business leader. He graduated as an Electronic and Communications Engineer in 1989 and obtained his Executive MBA in 2005.

• Large-Scale Energy Storage

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).

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

As Founder and Chief Technology Officer of TerraFlow Energy, Ian Rock brings over 25 years of expertise in renewable energy and advanced technology systems. He has held leadership roles in the energy and technology sectors, including Vice President of IT Operations at Lancium, where he specialized in ERCOT demand response programs, curtailment strategies, and integrating flexible loads into the Ancillary Services market. Ian also led modular data center initiatives and managed a $300M global customer business unit at Celestica, where he drove operational efficiencies and formed strategic partnerships. At TerraFlow Energy, Ian oversees the research and development of the company’s energy storage systems. His leadership ensures the delivery of innovative, scalable solutions that address the evolving needs of the renewable energy market, solidifying TerraFlow’s position as a leader in sustainable energy storage.

• Large-Scale Energy Storage

Eric Rosenblum has been a leader in technology and strategy for over 25 years, and is currently a Managing Partner with Foothill Ventures, a $300M seed fund investing in early stage technology-focused ventures in North America. In this role, he has led investments in energy/ battery companies like AM Batteries, Ascend Elements, Coreshell, Unigrid, South-8, Feon, Ampersand and Abacus Power. Prior to Foothill Ventures, Eric was a senior product executive at both Google and Palantir, and was COO of Drawbridge (sold to LinkedIn) and CEO of SmartPay (sold to Ping’an Group). He began his career as a consultant for The Boston Consulting Group. He has an AB from Harvard University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Janel Ruhlman is a Senior Application Engineer for battery applications at Henkel, based in Madison Heights, Michigan. With extensive experience in materials science and engineering, she specializes in developing and optimizing adhesive and coating solutions that enhance the performance, safety, and reliability of advanced battery systems. Janel partners with manufacturers to translate innovation into scalable, sustainable solutions for the rapidly evolving electric vehicle market.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

No bio available.

• Battery Engineering

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 Safety

Asma Sharafi, PhD, PMP is a visionary battery executive with over 10 years of experience leading innovation and industrialization in the energy storage sector. Currently serving as CEO of PowerCo Holding US (Volkswagen Group), she has spearheaded the company’s U.S. expansion, built cross-functional teams, and led the industrialization of solid-state battery technologies in collaboration with QuantumScape. Previously, Asma held senior leadership roles at Cuberg (Northvolt) and Rivian, where she directed product strategy, cell design, and advanced R&D across automotive, aviation, and consumer applications. Her expertise spans solid-state chemistry, lithium-metal systems, and scalable manufacturing processes. A recognized thought leader in the battery space, Asma is known for her ability to bridge deep technical knowledge with strategic business acumen. She has secured multimillion-dollar investments, built global partnerships, and served as a key liaison to boards, investors, and regulatory bodies. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, she is a passionate advocate for sustainable innovation and the green energy transition.

• AI for Energy Storage

Lie Shi has been the CEO of AM Batteries since July 2023. Prior, Shi served as President of Celgard, a world-renowned battery separator company that invented and commercialized a solvent-free process to produce microporous membranes for lithium-ion batteries. Over his twenty-six-year stint at the company, he worked his way from technical manager, leading its lithium battery material development, to Vice President of R&D, to Chief Technology Officer, to Chief Operations Officer, and ultimately, ascending to President. He also served as the Global Head of Separator Business Development for Asahi Kasei Corporation, Celgard’s parent company. Shi received his B.S. in Physics from Kyoto University, Japan, M.S. in Physics from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina - Charlotte.

• 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.

• AI for Energy Storage

R&D Engineer with 10 years experience in private industry. Projects include advanced separator, dry process, Si Anode, Li metal, and technical sales.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

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 Recycling

Ian Smith is currently the Automotive & Transportation Battery Product Manager at UL Solutions where he is responsible for maintaining, expanding and developing new battery testing, inspection and certification services for the North American market. Before coming to UL Solutions, Ian Smith was the Manager of the Electrified Powertrain section at Southwest Research Institute for five years where he was responsible for testing and R&D activities on lithium-ion batteries (cell, module and pack). As Manager, he provided technical oversight and direction for various battery test, certification and development programs, including those on MWh systems, and led industry consortia. Ian has direct experience with various cell chemistries, pack design & development and battery test standards such as the USABC BEV & PHEV Battery Test Manuals, UL 2580, UL 9540a, SAE J2464, UN 38.3, UN ECE R100, DO-311A, MIL-PRF-32565C and NAVY S9310 in addition to OEM-specific developmental test procedures.

• Battery Safety

Marco holds a PhD and brings years of experience in the Li-ion battery industry, working closely with cell developers and OEMs. His background spans materials and surface engineering, with a focus on translating advanced materials into high-performance, commercially viable battery solutions.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr Isaac Squires is CEO and Co-Founder of Polaron, an Imperial College London spin-out building AI systems for materials science. His work bridges AI and the physical sciences, focusing on accelerating the design of advanced materials for industries including energy storage. Isaac completed his PhD with Dr Sam Cooper in the TLDR group at Imperial College London, exploring the interface between AI and battery science, with publications spanning material characterisation, electrochemical modelling, and AI-driven design. He now leads Polaron’s mission to bring these technologies into industrial deployment.

• AI for Energy Storage

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

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

Anna Stefanopoulou, is a professor of mechanical engineering at the William Clay Ford Professor of Technology at the University of Michigan. She taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara and at ETH, Zurich, and she was a technical specialist at Ford. She earned her diploma in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (91, NTUA, Athens) and her PhD in Electrical Engineering (96, UMICH, Ann Arbor). Her innovation in powertrain control technology has been documented in a book, 21 US patents, 400 publications (8 of which have received awards) on state estimation, model-based prediction, and multivariable control of dynamic electrochemical and thermomechanical processes in engines, fuel cells and batteries. She is a Fellow of the ASME (08), IEEE (09), and SAE (18) and she has received major society awards.

• Battery Engineering

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Marcel is a Principal Interdisciplinary Systems Engineer at Amazon in the Operations Infrastructure Services organization. He is the founder and lead of the SafeTech program at Amazon, paving the way for safer battery deployments across millions of devices through the globe. Marcel brings over a decade of experience in consumer electronics including battery systems, robotics, and functional safety, raising the bar for battery and product safety.

• Battery Safety

Josh Stiling is an Investment Director at Anzu Partners with a focus on investing at the intersection of material science, electrification, and manufacturing technologies. Since joining Anzu in 2021, Josh has led and supported investments for several companies in Anzu's portfolio, including investments in AM Batteries, South 8 Technologies, e-Zinc, Xendee, and XGS Energy. Prior to Anzu and following undergrad, he competed professionally in the sport of water polo in Australia (Perth) and Spain (Barcelona) for two years before continuing on to work for an R&D industrial materials start-up in San Jose for 4 years. At Lyten, he served as a senior engineer in materials development and worked on applications such as batteries, super-capacitors, conductive inks and an IoT sensing platform for explosive materials. At Anzu he is supporting several portfolio companies, while also conducting diligence and sourcing new technologies in the industrial materials and energy space. He holds two degrees from UCSD, an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering and an MBA.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. Dee Strand is Chief Scientific Officer 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 Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, under the supervision of Professor John Schrag. Her Ph.D. research focused on rheology and birefringence of polymeric solutions.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

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

No bio available.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Dr. Darren H. S. Tan is the CEO and co-founder of UNIGRID Battery, a spin-out startup from the 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.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Amir Taqieddin is a Materials Informatics Scientist at Solid Power, where he develops frameworks that couple experiments, physics-based simulations, and machine learning (ML) to accelerate solid-state electrolyte design, integration, and manufacturing. His work spans forward and inverse design, molecular modeling, and multiscale simulations with varying levels of physics and process fidelity. He also builds ML and informatics models that convert early-stage data into actionable process recipes and performance predictions. Previously, Amir worked at Nissan North America and IBM Research on battery cell and materials modeling. He earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University, specializing in multiscale computation and modeling. His work includes publications on multiscale transport in thermo-fluid and energy storage devices, materials design, and electrochemical systems, as well as several pending patents in energy storage and allied fields.

• AI for Energy Storage

Kyle Teamey joins RA Capital as a Managing Partner, Planetary Health. Kyle's primary responsibility at RA is to lead investments in private companies that are developing innovative solutions to address climate change and environmental sustainability. Prior to joining RA, Kyle was a Partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), where he led investments and served on company boards that span the utilities, energy storage, chemicals, agriculture, automotive, recycling, and consumer products sectors. Prior to BEV, Kyle was a Principal at In-Q-Tel, the strategic investment arm of the CIA and US Intelligence Community, where he invested in early stage manufacturing, materials, energy, computing, and defense companies. Kyle was also the CEO and co-founder of Liquid Light, developer of a proprietary process to make major chemicals from CO2, which was sold to Avantium in 2016. Kyle also recently retired as a Colonel in the US Army Reserve after 24 years of service. He holds a BA in Environmental Engineering from Dartmouth College (1998), an MA in International Finance and Energy Policy from John Hopkins University (2008), an MS in Materials Science from Columbia University (2012), and a Masters of Strategic Studies from the Army War College (2020).

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. Venkataraman Thangadurai is a full professor and Chair in Energy at the School of Chemistry, University of St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom. He is the inaugural Faraday Adjunct Professorial Fellow at the University of St Andrews. He is elected Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), Royal Society of Canada, and the Electrochemical Society (USA). He has published more than 260 peer-reviewed papers in journals (H-index of 69). He has received the Keith Laidler Award from the Canadian Chemical Society (CSC) in 2016 and Research Excellence Award in Materials Chemistry from CSC in 2021. Dr. Thangadurai is founder of two start-ups based on his lithium-ion electrolytes research. His current research activities include the discovery of novel solid-state electrolytes and electrodes for advanced batteries and fuel cells.

• TUT11: Solid-State Batteries

No bio available.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

Antoni Tong, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Smartville, a company developing solutions for high-value, scalable EV battery circularity. He is a leading expert in battery energy storage system control, management, and their integration with grid modernization, renewable power sources, and electrified transportation. Dr. Tong's previous work includes serving as a research scientist at the University of California, San Diego, where he led projects on the integration of advanced energy storage systems across various emerging battery technologies. He also pioneered research, development, and commercialization of EV battery repurposing solutions, leading projects with Nissan, BMW, Cummins, Honda, and Pacific Gas & Electric.

• Battery Recycling

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 Engineering

Denis Trofimov leads the battery technology space for the Starship programme at SpaceX. In his previous roles, he served as a technical lead for power systems and lithium ion battery systems design across all space segments including low earth orbit, geostationary and deep space as well as the consumer electronics industry. Denis holds a Master of Science degree in Engineering Physics and Applied Physics from The Johns Hopkins University and Bachelor's degrees from Georgetown University in Physics and Foreign Service.

• Battery Technologies for Military and Aerospace Applications

Tom Van Bellinghen founded Lithink in mid 2024 with a clear mission to provide strategic go-to-market advice in the battery field. Tapping into 15 years of experience in the battery field, Lithink’s focus is on supply chains, ESG matters, closed-loop flows, pCAM, CAM & battery quality, cross-border administrative processes involving metal hedging and complex negotiations. Tom Van Bellinghen joined Umicore in 2009 as the Marketing & Sales Director responsible for Umicore’s Rechargeable Battery Materials business. Under his leadership, the business expanded significantly, becoming a multi-billion dollar enterprise. As the industry shifted its focus from portable electronics to automotive applications, Tom pioneered a direct touch model between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and cathode manufacturers. This approach enhanced transparency, cost-efficiency, and sustainability within the battery ecosystem. Starting in 2019, Tom shifted his attention to managing relationships with automotive OEMs, effectively positioning Umicore as the leading cathode supplier. One of his notable achievements was the successful closure of a joint venture contract between Umicore and Volkswagen (Ionway, 3B$ investment).

• TUT1: Cathode Active Materials: The Strategic Core of Performance, Cost and Sustainability

Stephanie Van Kirk has 20+ years of experience in the battery industry and has held leadership roles in technical account management, program development, and product innovation focusing on lead acid, NiMH, and lithium-ion chemistries for EVs, stationary storage, and specialty applications. She handles battery industry strategies and battery business development.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

Shaun joined the company in October, 2016 and was appointed CEO & MD in February, 2017. Prior to joining Syrah, Shaun was at BHP for 20 years in a variety of executive roles, with extensive international, commercial, and operational experience across a range of commodities including copper and base metals, uranium, and thermal and metallurgical coal. Shaun has extensive general management and cross-functional leadership experience, focused on the integration of commercial, operations, and supply chain excellence, with a particular interest in China’s growth and impact on the evolution of commodity and industrial markets.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

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.

• AI for Energy Storage

Scott Walbrun is a principal venture capital investor at BMW i Ventures, the independent venture capital fund managed on behalf of BMW Group based in Silicon Valley, where he focuses on Series A & B investments around the future of mobility, energy, artificial intelligence. In this capacity, Scott has served on the board of eight companies. He also serves as a mentor and workshop leader for hundreds of startups through various accelerator programs across the country. Prior to joining BMW i Ventures, Scott provided M&A and capital markets advisory as a member of Jefferies’ Technology Investment Banking team. Scott joined Jefferies after completing his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. While completing his MBA, he worked at Kinzie Capital Partners evaluating private equity investments, as well as at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation supporting the commercialization of science-based and deep tech companies. Prior to business school, Scott managed Strategic Finance and FP&A at Truck Hero (a TA Associates portfolio company) and began his career in Fiat Chrysler’s Finance Leadership Development Program.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. William Q. Walker received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from West Texas A&M University and a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Houston and has recently been appointed as the Chief Technology Officer for KULR Technology Corporation. With KULR, Walker focuses on the development and implementation of advanced thermal management solutions and analysis techniques for the company’s industry leading products. Prior to his recent transition to KULR, Walker worked for the NASA Johnson Space Center for nearly 12 years where his career primarily focused on the design of safe and optimized Lithium-ion battery assemblies for human spaceflight applications. Dr. Walker has also been recognized with a NASA Trailblazer Award and with the RNASA Stellar Award for his early career contributions to Li-ion battery thermal analysis and calorimetry methods. Dr. Walker continues to be engaged in the academic and professional communities focused on battery safety.

• Battery Engineering

Dr. Michael Wang is a Distinguished Fellow and director of the Systems Assessment Center, Energy Systems Division at Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Wang leads the ongoing development of Argonne’s GREET software model for life cycle analysis of vehicle technologies and transportation fuels. The GREET model and his research results have been used by regulatory agencies such as the California Air Resources Board, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop automotive fuel regulations. In addition to his work in the U.S., Dr. Wang has collaborated with government agencies, automotive companies, energy companies, universities and research institutions in Asia and Europe. Dr. Wang is a fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers and a member of the Transportation Energy Committee of the Transportation Research Board. He served on the boards of NGOs, companies, and Chinese automotive research organizations, and is on the editorial boards of four international journals. Dr. Wang has over 270 publications in the areas of transportation energy and environment effects. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Environmental Science from University of California at Davis and a B.S. in Agricultural Meteorology from the China Agricultural University, Beijing.

• Global Supply Chain for Battery Raw Materials

No bio available.

• Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering

Dr. John Warner is a well-recognized figure in the battery industry. He is an authority on EV batteries, an experienced sales, business development, strategic marketing, and product management executive with more than 35 years of combined automotive and battery industry experience and author of three successful books on EV batteries. Today he serves as one of the co-founders and Chief Customer Officer for American Battery Solutions, a lithium-ion battery pack manufacturer based in Michigan and Ohio where he is focused in on- and off-road mobility battery development. He is Founder and President of Warner Energy Consulting LLC. Previously, he served as Chief Marketing Officer for Ener1, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for XALT Energy, Director of Sales & Marketing for Magna Steyr Battery Systems NA, Director of Product Management at Boston-Power, and nearly 20 years in the auto industry, much of that with General Motors where he served in a wide variety of leadership roles. Dr. Warner published his first book “The Handbook of Lithium-Ion Battery Pack Design” in 2015 with a second edition published in May 2024. His second book, “Lithium-Ion Chemistries: A Primer” was published in 2019. His books focus on simplifying the complex topics around battery chemistries making it easily understandable by a wide audience for both entry level engineers and all non-engineering professionals.

• Global Battery Manufacturing Production

Xiaoyu Wen is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at QuantumScape, where she develops and implements image-based deep-learning models to support metrology inspections of solid-state battery components. She also uses AI-generated model predictions to design and refine quantitative metrics that help correlate inspection results with overall cell performance. Prior to joining QuantumScape in 2021 as a Senior Member of Technical Staff, Xiaoyu was a Graduate Student Researcher at University of California, Riverside, and a Battery Research Intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Xiaoyu holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrochemical Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology (China), a Master’s degree in Computer Science from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of California, Riverside.

• AI for Energy Storage

Jay is a material scientist and physicist with over 25 years of technical, business, and academic experience. His career has been focused on understanding and developing electrochemical materials and systems with a focus on lithium-ion batteries, energy policy, and innovation theory. He is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Materials Science and Engineering & Engineering and Public Policy departments, holds the Trustee Chair in Energy, and is currently on academic leave (after serving as the director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation for 6 years). Whitacre developed a novel aqueous battery chemistry that was manufactured and sold by Aquion Energy, a company he founded in 2008 that produced and shipped over 30 MWh of energy storage worldwide. Earlier in his career, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he worked as a battery technologist, system engineer, and mission cognizant engineer. Jay holds a BA in Physics from Oberlin College as well as a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

Dr. Erica Wiener is a Physical Scientist at the U.S. Department of Transportation, within the Office of Hazardous Materials Safety at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. In her role, she leads and coordinates research projects to improve the safe transportation of hazardous materials essential to everyone’s daily lives. Dr. Wiener is a Class of 2022 Presidential Management Fellowship Alumna, part of a distinguished Federal program established to recruit and develop future government leaders. As a Fellow, she provided thought leadership towards research program directions and critical project management in her role at PHMSA. She also served as a Deputy Director for Sustainability at the White House Council on Environmental Quality during her Fellowship. Prior to her service in government, she received a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a focus on Sustainable Water Development at the University of Iowa. Her research investigated fungal removal of emerging contaminants found in stormwater, with the goal of finding sustainable solutions to stormwater management.

• Battery Safety

Craig currently serves as the General Manager of Cambridge EnerTech with primary responsibilities for scientific conference organization and program development within energy market sectors with conferences based in the United States, Asia, Australia and Europe. Prior to that and since 2014, Craig served as Executive Director of Conferences for Cambridge Enertech. Previously to joining CII and forming Cambridge EnerTech, 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 technical marketing.

• AI for Energy Storage

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

Vamakshi Yadav, Ph.D., is a Researcher in the Battery Research and Development lab at General Motors R&D. Her current work focuses on developing small-scale testing methods to evaluate battery cell safety for automotive applications. Previously, she conducted research on the design and synthesis of molecularly-precise nanomaterials for applications in electrochemical and thermal catalysis. Vamakshi earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Purdue University.

• Advances in Automotive Battery Applications

Roman Yakobov completed both his BE and ME in Chemical Engineering at The Grove School of Engineering (CCNY), where he contributed to research across a broad range of engineering disciplines. His early work in batteries began at the CUNY Energy Institute-experience he carried forward to Urban Electric Power (UEP), where he helped design robust battery energy storage systems (BESS) and successfully integrate them with solar PV and grid-tied applications. Building on his impact at UEP, Roman joined Plug Power, an industry leader in fuel cell systems, where he currently supports the company’s expansion in the material handling sector. He plays a key role in developing and leading a strong in-house battery engineering team and serves as a critical technical resource across multiple departments. Roman led the creation and execution of a comprehensive battery strategy-spanning cell sourcing, pack design, manufacturing, reliability engineering, and second-life applications-which has directly contributed to securing over $40 million in new business through certification and commercialization efforts. His leadership in refining design, sourcing, and manufacturing strategies has driven multi-million-dollar efficiencies across Plug Power’s global battery operations, positioning the company at the forefront of integrated green energy solutions for material handling applications. Roman continues to bridge his electrochemical expertise with real-world system integration, enabling organizations to scale advanced battery technologies that meet today’s commercial, safety, and regulatory demands. Outside of work, Roman is devoted to his family, serves as an operatic cantor, teaches chess, and leads several independent engineering initiatives.

• Battery Engineering

Adrian is the Founder & Team Lead of STEER, a new Stanford organization focused on guiding “What to build, Where to Innovate, and How to Invest” for the energy transition. The mission of STEER is to overcome economic uncertainties of emerging energy technologies to unlock strategic investments and innovations. Key areas of focus span from batteries, advanced nuclear, carbon capture & storage, advanced geothermal, hydrogen, and more. Prior to STEER, Adrian spent 8 years as the Founder and CTO of a Li-ion battery cell manufacturing company, EnPower, Inc., on which he still serves as a Board Director. Adrian drove technology development and scale-up at EnPower from 2014-2022, taking the company from its Texas roots through Tennessee, Arizona, and finally Indianapolis, where EnPower acquired a brownfield gigafactory and is now scaling to several hundred MWh/y of high-performance cells for premium markets, spearheading the domestic production of advanced Li-ion batteries. Adrian obtained his B.S. in Material Science & Engineering from Rice University in Houston, TX.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Zhiao Yu is the Co-Founder and CTO at Feon Energy, a Boston-based company working on disruptive and innovative new lithium battery electrolytes. A Stanford PhD, co-founded Feon Energy, which has raised over $8 million in earl-stage grants and Seed funding. Feon is pioneering a novel approach that resembles the pharmaceutical industry, creating and producing "drug molecules" as the battery electrolyte to "treat" of next-generation batteries. Before founding Feon, Yu worked on battery manufacturing at Tesla and AI for Battery at ByteDance. Yu conducted PhD research on lithium batteries under the supervision of Prof. Zhenan Bao and Prof. Yi Cui. He published over >60 peer-reviewed papers and invented >10 patent applications. Yu is a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher and listed Forbes 30 Under 30 in Energy.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization

John is the CTO/CSO of Polypore International (Celgard)/Asahi Kasei. He received IBA (International Battery Association) Technology Award 2024 for his invention of Ceramic Coated Separator and Outstanding Contribution in Understanding of Internal Shorts Events of Li-ion Cells that lead the broad application of Ceramic Coated Separator (CCS). This technology has made a significant contribution to the evolution of humanity (SVP/CTO Panasonic). He is recognized as the leading authority on lithium-ion battery safety and separators. Through IEEE, he leads in establishing lithium-ion battery industry standards (P1625, P1725). John pioneered the Sulfide SSE with ~ 40 papers (1984-1991). He has chaired and/or organized more than 60 international conferences and delivered more than 120 invited keynote or plenary speeches at various international conferences. John has published more than 300 patents, papers, and books. John received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also attended Sloan School of MIT.

• High-Performance Battery Manufacturing

Dr. Yuepeng Zhang is a Senior Principal Materials Scientist and Group Leader at Argonne National Laboratory. She holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from McMaster University in Canada and has expertise in nanomaterials and membrane development. Dr. Zhang’s current research interests include ion- and electron-conductive materials and membranes designed to enable selective mass and charge transport in membrane-based devices, with a particular emphasis on emerging battery technologies including all solid-state batteries, as well as catalyst membranes and selective membranes for critical material extraction and recovery. Based in Argonne’s Materials Engineering and Research Facility, Dr. Zhang’s research also encompasses process scale-up, in-line quality control, and the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches for process autonomy and smart manufacturing. She has published numerous papers and patents and is the recipient of two R&D100 Awards.

• Lithium-ion Battery Development & Commercialization