2019 Speaker Biographies by Name

Dan Abraham joined MPEG LA in 2012 as Vice President, Science and Business Strategy, where he is responsible for identifying new opportunities and creating new programs. Dan came to MPEG LA from Columbia University where he served as Director of Columbia Technology Ventures. Prior to Columbia University, Dan served as Vice President, Chief Technologist at GE Technology Development. He has also served as Vice President, Advanced Development for Veeco Instruments; Intellectual Properties Director and Senior Scientist at Phase Metrics, and conducted nanoscience research at The Institute for Materials Research, University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands), IBM Research Laboratory Zurich and AT&T Bell Labs. Dan earned his PhD in Physics from the University of California.

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

Dr. Mohamed Alamgir serves as a Director, Research of LG Chem Michigan Inc. Dr. Alamgir has over 25 years of experience to his current position, where he is primarily responsible for the research, development and engineering of CPI battery cells. He joined CPI in 2000. Prior to joining CPI, he was research manager for High Energy Technologies from 1996 to 2000 and Rechargeable Battery Industries Corp. from 1995 to 1996, where he worked to improve lithium-ion technology for commercial use. He also spent a year (1995) at Lithium Technology Corporation as a research manager and started his career at EIC Laboratories where he spent 10 years (1985-95) as a research engineer working on the performance and safety of lithium-ion batteries. Heearned a PhD in physical chemistry from Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass., and a Master of Science in electrochemistry from Technische Hochschule, Mersburg, Germany.

John Anderson works in research and development for Dow Chemical in Midland, Michigan. A 34-year employee, he has held roles in engineering, manufacturing and technical service. Since 2001, he has been estimating manufacturing costs of new products and processes including the identification of viable, commercial-scale raw material suppliers and prices.

Timothy Arthur is a Principal Scientist at the Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA) working in the Materials Research Department. His current interest is developing new materials and methods for next-generation batteries, specifically multivalent and solid-state batteries, and holds several publication and patent authorships. During his Ph.D. candidacy at Colorado State University under the guidance of Professor Amy Prieto, Tim co-founded Prieto Battery Inc., which specializes in three-dimensional energy storage systems.

With more than 25 years of engineering, procurement, business development and management experience, Micheal Austin is a Vice President of BYD North America. He has played an integral role in bringing the global leader of battery electric technology to the United States and Latin America. He joined BYD in 2007, as the first U.S. team member and officer, and played a role in all aspects of North America business affairs including procurement for two factories, strategy, public relations, marketing, recruitment, hiring, training, negotiations and organizational development. Austin is currently responsible for business and sales development for more than 35 North American and global tier-one Energy Storage clients, and is based in Chicago. He also serves as one of BYD's North American spokespersons, and has been featured on Bloomberg TV, NPR Radio series and several news pieces. Prior to joining BYD, Austin served Motorola for 15 years in multiple roles including Global Procurement Senior Director, Integrated Supply Chain (ISC); Senior Strategic Sourcing Manager, ISC; Global Cell Commodity Manager, Energy Systems Business; New Business Development Senior Manager, Energy Systems Business; Technical Operations Manager, Atlanta Manufacturing Operations; and Mechanical Engineer and Program Manager, Portable Electronics. He was honored with Motorola's Distinguished Innovator award for receiving 25 patents (and now has 29 US patents); the President's Award for Excellence in Supply Chain; and three Global Customer Satisfaction (TCS) awards. Austin has been a keynote or panelist at numerous events and conferences including: Main Stage Cannes Lions 2018; and NC-PEV Taskforce Webinar. In addition, he is actively involved in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and is a founding board member of the Transportation Electrification Initiative (TEI). A certified National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEE) Engineer, Austin received his Bachelor's degree in Design Engineering in 1991 from Brigham Young University and a Master's in Mechanical Engineering in 1992.

Perla B. Balbuena is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and has joint appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and in the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University since 2004. Previously she was Assistant and then Associate Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Carolina. Her research interests are in the first principles analysis and characterization of materials for catalysis, separations, and energy storage and conversion. She has published more than 270 scientific papers in her field of research, and the US Department of Energy (Battery Materials Research, Battery 500 Seedling, and Basic Energy Sciences) supports her work.

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

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

Dr. Betzner has an MS in Physics (Ball State, 1990) and PhD in Electrical Engineering (University of Cincinnati, 1996). He spent the first half of his career in the automotive industry working in MEMS sensors, fuel cells, and solar cells. In 2009 he became Research Scientist for the Systems Division at Fairfield, researching batteries, sensors, and clocks for seismic nodes.

Rohit joined the University of Warwick in 2008 from Imperial College London. His research expertise lies within improving the manufacturability of devices and technology through a combination of electrochemical techniques and materials/manufacturing knowledge. At WMG, Rohit has collaborated extensively with industry and has worked with SMEs to address electrochemical based challenges to working with large automotive companies to characterise battery safety.

Jeff is the Director of Battery Technologies at Microsoft. He is responsible for battery development in Microsoft’s varied product lines. Prior to joining Microsoft Jeff worked in various battery manufacturers and Energy Storage System Integrators. Jeff has worked with almost every electro-chemical storage medium available today. From the many faces of Lithium Ion, Lead Acid, Molten Salts, and Aqueous Alkaline and Halide salts. Jeff holds a BSEE from Washington State University, MSEE from University of Idaho. He has published numerous papers in journals and conferences and holds over 45+ patents.

Victor A. Cardona, a partner with Heslin Rothenberg Farley and Mesiti, is experienced in enforcing, and procuring protection for, all types of Intellectual Property including patents, trademarks and copyrights. Prior to joining the firm in 1999, Victor gained valuable experience as an Environmental Engineer with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation where he spent over six years evaluating the feasibility, effectiveness and implementation of environmental remediation technologies. Victor is a co-chair and co-founder of the firm’s Cleantech Practice Group. He has been a driving force behind the Group’s signature Clean Energy Patent Growth Index which tracks innovations in the Clean Energy area along with the top patent owners, countries and U.S. states for Clean Energy patents. He has spoken and written about this topic in various venues. He is also a member of the firm’s Mechanical and International Practice groups. Victor has extensive experience in procuring overseas Intellectual property protection for the firm’s clients, which is enhanced by his knowledge of Italian. Victor graduated with a Juris Doctorate cum laude from Albany Law School and has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University with a concentration in Environmental Engineering. He is admitted to the New York State Bar and is a patent attorney registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Victor enjoys coaching youth baseball along with running, fitness training, playing golf and watching the Yankees. He lives with his wife and 3 children in Guilderland. Victor is on the Board of his local neighborhood association. Industry Groups/ Legal Associations: Board Member of New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium, New Energy New York, Alliance for Clean Energy New York, Vice President, Italian American Bar Association, Greater Capital Chapter of New York.

Jeremy is a Battery Technology Engineer with the Lenovo Strategic Technical Innovation Center. As part of the Strategic Technology Innovation Center my responsibilities include evaluating and incubating new battery and power technologies for product intercept in the 1-3 year timeframe. Responsible for driving innovation into our PC products across all business units.

Dr. Zheng Chen is an Assistant Professor in the NanoEngineering Department, Chemical Engineering Program at University of California, San Diego. He received his BS from Tianjin University in 2007 and PhD from UCLA in 2012, both in Chemical Engineering. He did his postdoc research at Stanford University before joining UCSD. His research focuses on energy storage and conversion, water desalination and environmental sustainability. Dr. Chen is a receipt of the LG Chem Global Battery Innovation Contest (BIC) Award in 2017, NASA’s 2018 Early Career Faculty Award, and the ACS Petroleum Research Foundation’s Doctoral New Investigator Award in 2018. He has been selected as a Scialog Fellow in Advanced Energy Storage by Research Corporation. He has also been recognized as a 2018 Emerging Investigator of materials for optical, magnetic and electronic devices in Journal of Materials Chemistry C.

Cui studies nanoscale phenomena and their applications broadly defined. Research Interests: Nanocrystal and nanowire synthesis and self-assembly, electron transfer and transport in nanomaterials and at the nanointerface, nanoscale electronic and photonic devices, batteries, solar cells, microbial fuel cells, water filters and chemical and biological sensors.

Brian Cunningham is a Senior Technical Project Manager for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office which leads Research and Development (R&D) projects aimed to improve the fuel economy of the United States’ fleet of vehicles. Within the DOE, Brian manages the VTO’s SBIR/STTR portfolio and the Energy Storage Team’s Advanced Intermetallic Anode research portfolio, Computer Aided Engineering for Batteries (CAEBAT) efforts, and various battery development efforts related to energy storage fast charging. Brian is the co-chair of the United States Advanced Battery Consortium’s Technical Advisory Committee and was a founding member of the DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Assistant Management Board. He recently won the Assistant Secretary’s Outstanding Impact Award for his contribution to DOE’s ground breaking Extreme Fast Charging R&D Gap Assessment and Research Roadmap.

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

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

Dr. Doninger is the developer of many U.S., European and Canadian patents related to carbon processing methodologies and processing equipment. A chemical engineer, Dr. Doninger is the author of some thirty technical papers related to graphite composite anodes; carbon-based materials for energy storage systems; and advanced graphite for Lithium-ion batteries.

Chris Egloff has extensive experience with regard to specialized testing and packaging design for lithium batteries. Chris Egloff is VP Sales for Americase and a principal partner in Fulcrum Labs. As the Hazardous Materials Packaging Specialist at Americase, Chris has been active in the research and development of fire/heat mitigating containers and packaging for over 13 years. For the past 9 years, he has concentrated his efforts in testing lithium ion and lithium metal batteries pushed into thermal runaway. These efforts have subsequently allowed Americase to design several packaging solutions for damaged and defective recall batteries. These solutions have been utilized by the vast majority of companies issuing recalls over the past several years. Chris became a co-founder of Fulcrum Testing labs in 2016, which specializes in the destructive testing of both lithium ion and lithium metal batteries. Fulcrum Testing is one of very few labs in the country with the ability and equipment to perform the difficult testing requirements for SAE-G27. He has had the honor to instruct private classes for regulatory members of the Department of Transportation (DOT) and has consulted companies like Apple, NASA, United, SATAIR, B/E Aerospace, and AVOX Systems on fire and heat mitigating packaging. In addition he has presented as an expert in his field for multiple ICAO DGP’s, LabelMaster’ s Dangerous Goods Instructors Symposium (DGIS), and IATA’s Lithium Battery Workshops.

Alex Emly is a Managing Engineer in Exponent’s Menlo Park office where she helps her clients solve problems related to lithium-ion cell design, manufacture, and abnormal use case scenarios. She has experience in quality assessments, failure analyses, and best manufacturing practices for lithium-ion cells. She is formally trained as a materials scientist, specializing in the thermodynamics and kinetics of battery materials and earned her PhD from the University of Michigan.

Bogdan Epureanu is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University in 1999. His current research interests and activities blend theory and fundamental experiments in nonlinear dynamics, structural health monitoring, aeroelasticity and computational dynamics, with applications relevant to biological systems, aerospace and automotive structures, and turbomachinery. rofessor Epureanu has published more than 85 articles in archival journals, and has made numerous presentations at conferences and universities. He is also an Associate Editor of Journal of Vibration and Acoustics (Transactions of ASME) and of AIAAJ Journal and served as guest editor for several other journals. He also organizes conferences/symposia and serves on several University and American Society of Mechanical Engineers' technical committees. He has earned several national and international awards. Among his honors are the 2004 American Academy of Mechanics Junior Achievement Award, an NSF Career Award in 2004, the 2003 ASME/Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal Award, the 2001 Young Innovator Award from Petro-Canada, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers' 2001 Best Paper Finalist Award, and was the winner of Eaton Corporation's 1999 International Mechanical Design Contest. In 1998, Professor Epureanu received the A. M. Strickland Award from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers' Division of Manufacturing Industries. He was also awarded the 2005 Beer and Johnston Outstanding Mechanics Educator Award by the American Society for Engineering Education.

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

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

Dr. Fricke has provided technical, management, and business leadership for over four decades in a variety of fields. Currently, for CAMX Power, Dr. Fricke facilitates efforts and collaboration to develop, implement, and commercialize electronic battery safety systems. Dr. Fricke has a BS and an MS from Vanderbilt University and a joint PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

James Friend (Professor, UC San Diego, PhD 1998) is an expert in acoustic wave interaction with fluids and solids at micro- to nano-scales. He spent a decade in Australia and four years in Japan as a faculty researcher before joining UCSD in late 2014. He has published over 260 peer-reviewed articles and has 28 patents granted or in process, and has won numerous awards over his career, most recently being elevated to a Fellow of the IEEE.

Bettina Fuchs is an electrochemist currently working as Post-Doc Researcher at the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW) in Ulm, Germany, where she received her PhD in the field of supercapacitors (2015-2017). Her dissertation focused on the interaction between activated carbon electrodes and aqueous electrolytes. Before, she was investigating asymmetric hybrid Li-Ion Supercapacitors in organic electrolytes (2012-2014, at the same place). Prior to starting her scientific career, she worked as a group and project leader for Chemical Bath Deposition (CBD) processes and equipment in the photovoltaics and semiconductor industry (Würth Solar GmbH & Co. KG and Manz CIGS Technology GmbH, 2007-2012). In 2007, she received the Dr. Barbara Mez-Starck Award for her diploma in chemistry at Ulm University.

Dr. Ann-Christin Gentschev is the head of electrolyte-based battery research projects in the North America region for the BMW Technology Office USA. She received her PhD in Inorganic Chemistry and Electrochemistry from the University of Muenster, working on polymer electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries. In 2012, she joined the BMW Research Battery Technology team in Munich, led by Peter Lamp, with responsibilities covering projects on cell, electrolyte, battery safety, and battery production techniques. Next to classic battery topics, she is also in charge for the charging infrastructure at the Mountain View location as well as for several interdisciplinary projects within the TechOffice teams. The recently announced 200M Euro investment to create a BMW Battery Cell Competence Center in Munich will bring together energy storage experts from across the company in a state-of-the-art facility that enables R&D from material synthesis to cell prototyping. The battery team from the BMW TechOffice will be also a strong part of this set up.

Dr. Kevin Gering has been involved in computation-assisted research for most of his 28+ year career at Idaho National Laboratory. Kevin is an established expert in the field of state-of-the-art molecular-based electrolyte models for electrochemical systems (Advanced Electrolyte Model, AEM, R&D100 award in 2014), 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, finalist in 2015 R&D 100 and Idaho Innovation Awards). Through AEM more than 40 property metrics are explored for electrolyte systems (e.g., Li-ion and Na-ion), approaching genome-level characterization that greatly aids in electrolyte screening and optimization. Kevin is an advocate for National Lab-to-Industry engagement. PhD in Chemical Engineering, 1989 (University of Oklahoma).

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

Thomas is globally recognized for the creation of rechargeable magnesium battery electrochemistry. He has a strong background in lithium-ion battery, fuel cell, and ultracapacitor science and technology. He has extensive experience in designing, developing, and scaling up a wide variety of chemical and polymer processes safely and successfully. He is an early stage chemical process economic analysis practitioner with a focus on using such techniques to compare process alternatives and develop and guide research efforts. Thomas has done extensive collaborative work with large and small companies, R&D organizations, and government labs in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Tim Grejtak is an Analyst for Lux Research’s Energy Storage Intelligence Service based in New York. By providing thoughtful analysis of changing markets and policies, and covering innovative new chemistries and companies, Tim can help clients navigate the complex industries of transportation and stationary energy storage. Prior to joining Lux Research, Tim was a chemical engineer for Lockheed Martin Energy helping to develop safe, durable, and inexpensive grid-scale batteries based on a proprietary novel chemistry. There, he helped drive major improvements in battery design leading to a half-dozen awarded patents, as well as model system performance and benchmarking. Tim has gained experience with the automotive sector with posts at BMW and Better Place working on fuel cells and lithium ion chemistries respectively. Tim holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a minor in their interdisciplinary energy studies program.

Robert Hahn, is head of the microenergy storage group of Fraunhofer IZM. He’s worked for more than 20 years in the field of batteries and microelectronic packaging. He has taken over the coordination of several national and European research projects for the development of new batteries and integrated power supplies for micro systems, energy autarkic and medical electronics. He is head of the Fraunhofer micro battery initiative MicroLIB. Dr. Hahn has filed 30 patents in the area of energy systems and authored and co-authored more than 100 journal and conference publications as well as book chapters. He was coordinator of the FP7 project MATFLEXEND for the development of lithium-ion batteries based on nanofibers. As a teacher, he gives lectures in micro batteries and energy harvesting at the Technische Universität Berlin and HTW Berlin.

Hans gained his MBA from Vienna University of economics and business in 1984. He held several positions in strategic management, leading scientific and business innovation. Together with experts from electronic companies and Universities he founded company e-moove GmbH in 2008. Inspired by the early approaches in e-mobility and battery development, the team was focusing its activities on the development of a sophisticated charging infrastructure and the disruptive technical approach of an effective battery control.

Subra is currently working at the Applied Materials since 2010 and responsible for energy storage technical activities. Subra worked at Panasonic developing of new electrode materials for the lithium-ion battery. Subra obtained PhD degree in solid state chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, India and Bachelor degree and Master’s degree in Chemistry from the Mangalore University, India. He worked at Ames Lab Iowa US, University of Tubingen Germany and University of Waterloo Canada. Subra had Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) fellowship while working in Germany. Subra has over 20 academic publications, 8 patents and presented work at conferences/workshops and invited talks.

Jerry Hoffman is the President of LiiON, LLC, a leading provider of lithium-based backup battery systems for standby power including large data center applications. Prior to joining LiiON, Jerry was a co-founder and President of NorthStar Battery Company. NorthStar was a start-up company in 2000 that quickly grew into a leading designer and manufacturer of premium lead-acid AGM batteries for the telecommunication, UPS and specialty automotive markets. NorthStar’s battery products are currently operating in over 130 countries around the world. Jerry also previously served as the Director of Global Accounts at the Hawker Battery Group. Based in London, he directed and coordinated key OEM global sales programs being served by various Hawker operating units across all continents. He has lived in Germany, England, and India, and he has spent considerable time in all other major global markets.

Jonathan Højberg is principal scientist at Haldor Topsoe A/S and responsible for development of high voltage cathode material LNMO. He was awarded Young Researcher Award at Danish Technical University for his PhD on Li-air battery degradation mechanisms. He founded the Danish Battery Society and chairs Nordic Battery Conference 2019.

2004~2010, PhD in polymer science, Institute of chemistry Chinese Academy of Science 2010~2014, Sr. Eng. in ATL, for Apple iPad, Mac-book and iPhone 2014~2017, Principal Eng. in Huawei, for battery test center in consumer BG 2017~2018, Director in Hunan Shanshan, for battery technology center 2018~now, Vice president of Research Institute in Highpower International

Brett M. Huhman received the BS and MS degrees from the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 2003 and 2006, respectively, and a PhD from Virginia Tech in 2017, all in electrical engineering. From 2005 to 2007 he was with L3-Titan Pulsed Sciences Division at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC. In 2007, he joined the Pulsed Power Physics Branch of the Plasma Physics Division at NRL. He has published nearly 100 conference and refereed journal articles in a variety of venues and topics as first and secondary author. In January 2011 he received his Professional Engineer License in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. He received the 2011 Award for Group Achievement for his work on the railgun program, and was the recipient of the NRL Edison Memorial Scholarship Training Program.

Patrick Hurley began serving as the Chief Technology Officer of A123 Systems in August of 2014. Prior to joining A123, Dr. Hurley's experience included technology leadership roles at Air Products and Chemicals and Johnson Controls Inc. In his previous role at Air Products and Chemicals, Dr. Hurley managed research programs in alternative energy production along with integrated circuits. During his role as director (IV) of Global Core Engineering at Johnson Controls Inc., Dr. Hurley directed a multi-disciplinary team to implement new technologies, processes and products in the Electrochemical Energy Storage space on a global scale. Following the completion of his PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at Purdue University, Dr. Hurley continued his studies in Solid State Physics as a Kavli Postdoctoral Scholar at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Dr. Hurley has been awarded over $20M in U.S. Department of Energy grants and has served on numerous government panels for the advancement of science and engineering.

Gaurav Jain is a Technical Fellow and Director of Energy Systems Research & Technology at Medtronic. In his role he has responsibility for development of battery technologies for Medtronic’s implanted medical devices and selection of batteries for non-implantable applications. He has a PhD in materials science with 25+ peer reviewed publications, 20+ patents / applications.

Dr. Judy Jeevarajan joined UL recently as a Research Director for Electrochemical Safety with battery safety continuing to be her area of specialization. She has worked in the area of batteries for more than 18 years with a primary focus on the lithium-ion chemistry. She had worked on-site at NASA-Johnson Space Center in Houston since 1998. At NASA, she was the Group Lead for Battery Safety and Advanced Technology at NASA-JSC. Before becoming a civil servant at NASA in 2003, she worked for Lockheed Martin Space Operations. She has an MS in Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame (’91) and she graduated with a PhD in Chemistry (Electrochemistry) from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1995. Dr. Jeevarajan worked for a small business company in College Station, TX for a year immediately after completion of graduate work. Following this, she worked for a year as a postdoctoral fellow at Texas A&M University on NASA projects. She has more than 18 years of battery experience with her main focus being Li-ion cell and battery research. At NASA Dr. Jeevarajan not only represented the battery group at all the NASA safety panels but also led the advanced battery technology work with a special focus on the safety improvements. Dr. Jeevarajan serves in the Technical Working Group for standards organizations such as Underwriter’s Laboratories, RTCA and IEC/ANSI and is currently leading an effort under AIAA to write a space safety standard for battery systems. She has written two book chapters, one on battery safety that was published in 2009 and a second one on commercial Li-ion cell safety, published in January 2014. Dr. Jeevarajan supported the Boeing 787 Investigation as a member of a Non-Advocate Review panel as well as an advisory member to the FAA and also supported an NTSB informational forum on Li-ion batteries. Dr. Jeevarajan has made more than 100 presentations at conferences and has won numerous NASA awards the most recent of them being the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and the NASA-NESC Engineering Excellence Award.

Dr. Puru Jena, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Virginia Commonwealth University received his PhD from the University of California, Riverside. He also served as a program director at the Division of Materials Research, National Science Foundation (1986-87) and Jefferson Science Fellow and Senior Science Adviser at the US State Department (2007-08). He is the author of nearly 600 papers including 13 books and has given more than 500 scientific talks at international conferences and institutions in 26 countries. Among his many honors are Virginia Outstanding Scientist, Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, and Presidential Medallion, University Award of Excellence, and Outstanding Scholar Award – all from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Tim Johnson was Director – Emerging Regulations and Technologies for Corning Incorporated, but is now recently retired. He is a well-known expert on emerging mobile emissions regulations and technologies, and helps develop strategic positioning for new products. Dr. Johnson is quite active in various advisory and ad-hoc committees with international government agencies, universities, and private organizations, and is a frequent speaker at international technical conferences. He has been with Corning for 31 years, and 21 years in his position. He is a four-time recipient of the Lloyd L. Withrow Distinguished Speaker Awards from SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), and in 2008 was named SAE Fellow. He also received California’s 2009 Haagen-Smit Clean Air Technology Award. He was on the editorial board of three leading engine journals, and recently served on the National Research Council review committee on the US Department of Energy 21st Century Truck Partnership program. He earned his BS and MS Engineering Degrees from the University of Minnesota in 1978 and 1979, and his Doctor of Science from MIT in 1987.

Mr. Juzkow is currently leading the lithium-ion cell program at NIO and is responsible for cell selection, qualification, testing and new chemistry and cell design development. Mr. Juzkow began his battery career in 1985 at Moli Energy in Canada, developer of the first lithium-ion battery in North America. Mr. Juzkow moved to the Bay Area, CA in 1996 to work for PolyStor and Cooper Bussmann (PowerStor supercapacitors). Mr. Juzkow also led Leyden Energy’s R&D group and Iontensity, providing Li-ion contract development and testing services. Mr. Juzkow has also consulted for Eagle Picher, OM Group, Qynergy, SAFT, Bloomberg, Flextronics and Mobile Power Solutions, and founded four companies. Mr. Juzkow has worked and consulted in all aspects of the lithium-ion industry including electrolyte and active materials research, performance and abuse testing, cell chemistry and cell design development, technology transfer, sales and marketing, contract assembly, cell qualifications for OEMs, failure analysis, IP and expert witness services. Mr. Juzkow has also worked in the supercapacitor field and was a founding member of the first lithium-ion IEC group. Mr. Juzkow has a BSc (Chem), MSc (Chem) and an EMBA.

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.

Terence has more than 20yrs in Semiconductor and Electronic applications. Mech-Engineer with Chemical and Electrical engineering knowledge, has delivered advance materials on technology fields; immersion lithography to ITER Fusion Reactor TF-Coils. At Wevo, Terence has strengthened the company’s drive for innovation and advancement in the field of Electronic Material supply.

Prof. Emma Kendrick is chair of energy materials, within the Metallurgy and Materials department at the University of Birmingham. Prior to this position she held a Reader position in Electrochemical Energy Materials within the Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) at WMG, University of Warwick and has 10 years of industrial research experience in new battery technology development, latterly as Chief Technologist in Energy Storage at SHARP Laboratories of Europe Ltd (SLE) and prior to that for two innovative battery SME’s, Fife Batteries Ltd and Surion Energy Ltd. Her research over the last 20 years has focused on translation of novel functional materials to industry relevant device demonstrators. New battery materials and chemistries to proof of concept cell demonstrators.

Mr. Kerchner has served as the Executive Director of PRBA – The Rechargeable Battery Association (www.prba.org) since 2006. He represents PRBA at domestic and international transportation forums such as the United Nations Subcommittee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods and International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Dangerous Goods Panel. He is also a Senior Regulatory Analyst with the law firm of Wiley Rein in Washington, DC. He provides dangerous goods consulting services and regularly conduct dangerous goods training programs for shippers of lithium batteries, EVs, and other dangerous goods.

Jenna King is the CEO of Amionx. Ms. King served as General Counsel and a member of the executive team of Zimmer Dental. Ms. King began her career as a corporate attorney at Cooley LLP, where she represented technology companies in private financings, M&A, joint ventures and corporate governance matters.

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).

After graduating as an inorganic chemist, from the University of Stuttgart in 1976, he started his career at Varta Batterie AG, as project manager for lithium battery systems, directing their development and production in Germany and in Singapore. In the early 1980s he left to be director of marketing for Raychem in Menlo Park, California, and Munich, Germany. In 1986, Dr. Kruger rejoined VARTA as technical director of their R & D Center in Germany. In 2001 he joined Gaia Akkumulatorenwerke Nordhausen as Managing Director, and after their 2002 merger with Lithium Technology Corp. of Plymouth Meeting, USA, became President and Chief Executive Officer of LTC/GAIA. From 2006 until 2010, Dr. Kruger served as Senior Vice President for Engineering & Product Development at PowerGenix Inc. in San Diego, CA and Shenzhen/China. In 2011 he joined Roland Berger Strategy Consultants GmbH and in 2015, he became the head of the business unit for battery separators at Treofan/Germany GmbH. Dr. Kruger has published over 60 technical papers and holds more than 80 patents and patent applications.

Dr. Kyprianou has been coordinating the Center’s policy for battery powered medical devices since 2011. He has been at the US Food and Drug Administration, Center for Devices and Radiological Health since 2004. He started his career at the FDA as a research imaging scientist and in 2011 he moved to the Office of the Center Director where he has been coordinating the Center’s regulatory science priorities, addressing medical device related, emerging public health issues and cybersecurity.

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

Mr. Lee is an Electrical Safety Engineer and Battery Project Manager with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) at its National Product Testing and Evaluation Center (NPTEC) in Maryland. He has over 20 years of experience in consumer product safety and 34 years of experience in research, design, test, and evaluation engineering. His work involves failure and safety analysis of electrical products, including battery operated products and installed electrical wiring components. He serves on numerous battery and product standard and code committees with UL, IEEE, ANSI/NEMA, NFPA, and ASTM International. Mr. Lee is also the CPSC’s technical representative on the National Electrical Code (NEC) panels on branch circuit wiring and electrical appliances and has authored several papers, standards proposals, safety articles, and consumer safety alerts. Prior to working at CPSC, Mr. Lee spent 13 years working on electronic systems for the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center in Maryland. Mr. Lee received his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, and the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He also has a PMP (Project Management Professional) Certificate from the Project Management Institute).

Wilson Lee is Technical Marketing Manager at Tektronix. Wilson has over 25 years of technical marketing, and leadership roles with manufacturers such as CTS Electronic Components, as well technical/value-add distributors such as Richardson RFPD and Premier Farnell. Wilson has focused heavily on design and design engineer engagement within the RF/Wireless, Industrial Power, and Industrial Automation market segments.Wilson holds a BS Degree from Cornell University. He currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

Andrew has over 15 years of experience in the metals, mining and minerals industry as an analyst and consultant and has held roles as a Director at Wood Mackenzie, Principal Consultant and Practice Area Leader at CRU Consulting and Associate Director and Senior Commodities Analyst at VTB Capital. As Head of Forecasting & Consultancy he is responsible for creating and maintaining Benchmark’s independent forecasting services – quarterly subscription offerings for lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel and Li-ion cell costs. Benchmark also undertakes a select number of consultancy projects each year for major actors across the li-ion battery supply chain from the world’s leading mining companies to battery makers and electric vehicle manufacturers. On the consultancy side he has specialised in Supply Chain Strategy Management and Metals & Mining Finance and Project Valuation, overseeing numerous lenders market reports; pre-feasibility studies; commercial due diligence projects; offtake studies; syndication deals and IPO support projects. Andrew has also produced and edited leading industry publications on the finished steel and steel pipe markets, the GFMS Gold Survey on behalf of Thomson Reuters, and the World Silver Survey on behalf of the Silver Institute. He holds a BA (hons) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.

Jianlin Li is a R&D Staff at Energy Transportation Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is a recipient of numerous awards including 2 R&D 100 awards and 1 FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer Award. Dr. Li holds 5 US patent with 4 pending and has co-authored 70+ peer-reviewed articles. His research interest includes materials processing, electrode formulation, engineering and architecture, cell manufacturing, testing and characterization, Roll-to-Roll manufacturing, and quality control for energy storage and conversion.

Wenjie Li is a research scientist under the direction of Prof. Song Jin at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is interested in materials and devices for energy conversion and storage applications. His research focused on the understanding, development and demonstration of a novel type of integrated solar flow battery (SFB) device. Wenjie has authored two publications on this project in Angewandte Chemie International Edition and Chem, respectively. His recent work sets new records for integrated SFBs and has been covered by various medias including Nature, The Verge, and Wisconsin State Journal. Wenjie has been recognized with a MRS GSA silver award for his work on SFBs.

Dr. S.-C. Liao has been the Chief Technical Advisor of HCM since 2016. He is also the Research Supervisor of Energy-Storage Nanomaterial Department of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) of Taiwan. His recent research has been focusing on the synthesis, processing and characterizations of nanomaterials for advanced Li-ion batteries. Dr. Liao is also the executive committee member of Taiwan Powder and Powder Metallurgy Association. Dr. Liao received his PhD degree in Materials Science & Engineering from Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ, USA) in 1996. He has published over forty SCI papers and been granted 20 patents. In 2000, he received the Outstanding Technical Paper Award from the Metal Powder Industries Federation of USA. He has also won a few ITRI and MOEA (Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan) awards of outstanding researches and successfully transferred the developed technologies of battery materials such as LCO, LNC, NCM, LFP, LFMP, Si/C, and functional electrolytes to domestic industries.

Jack Lifton’s work career began at Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. in Detroit, Michigan in 1962 with the preparation and study of the electronic properties of ultrapure technology metals’ their compounds, and their alloys. He first examined the electronic uses of lithium and its compounds for energy storage; ambient sensing, and thermoelectric potential. In 1964 Jack Lifton produced the first thin film phase change memory cell, which resulted in the invention of the recordable CD/DVD and is today the basis of SSD computer memories. At ECD he also worked on the development of the first commercial europium based cathodoluminescent phosphor and participated in the first work on rare earth based hydrogen storage alloys that led ultimately to the development of the nickel hydride battery in the period 1965-67. He was also at that time a volunteer member of the team at the Ford Motor Company developing alkali-metal sulfur molten salt batteries for vehicular traction use. After receiving his MS Chemistry degree from Wayne State University (Detroit) in 1967 he began his employment by ITT Advanced Electro-Optical Laboratories in San Fernando, California, where he developed a method for the deposition of thin films of photoactive materials along the walls of microchannel plate tubes that resulted in the successful creation of a type of solid state image intensifier device still in use today. Returning to ECD in 1970 he began a new career in developing and manufacturing engineered materials for the OEM automotive and electronics industry. Between 1972 he served as production manager; technical sales director; VP operations, and finally CEO of a Detroit based private production materials manufacturing company and then of a AngloFrench joint venture. His industrial career ended when he retired as the CEO of a wholly owned American OEM engineered materials subsidiary of Germany’s MetallGesellschaft, but he continued as a business operations consultant as Jack Lifton LLC, which he founded in 1999 and which continues in operation today. Jack Lifton coined the term “technology metals” in 2007, and has become one of the best known “popular” expositors in print and on the lecture circuit of the global markets for technology metals in the world. He consults to public and private companies, institutional investors, and governmental organizations on the sourcing, refining, fabricating, and marketing of the technology metals and materials. He has been a technology metals trader for two generations and has travelled extensively to visit mines, refineries, and fabricators on every continent. He is on the advisory or main boards of companies in the lithium, cobalt, graphite, rare earths, niobium, and process engineering ventures.

James has a broad materials science and engineering background with an emphasis revolving around electrochemistry. He is particularly interested in electron transfer and shipping products. In addition to systems integration, he values project management, product development, and product engineering of various synergistic technologies. As a Sr. Battery System Engineer at Amazon Lab126, James designed and verified batteries in eReaders, worked on advanced technology projects, and established new battery technology landscapes. Previously, James worked as a Sr. Research Scientist at Corning Incorporated in Corning, NY, where he served as an ultracapacitor technical team leader, led a battery characterization project, and evaluated glass surface attributes. Prior to Corning, he was an Associate Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. While at JPL he gained experience in thermoelectric microdevices, chemical sensor microarrays, and lithium-based microbatteries. James received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2007. His dissertation research was on sol-gel based bio-fuel cell architectures. He also received his MS in Materials Science and Engineering as well as his BS in Biochemistry from UCLA in 2001 and 1999, respectively.

Michael Liu is the Director for Energy Storage Business Development at BYD America, the world’s largest producer of iron phosphate rechargeable batteries, covering the Generation Integration, Transmission and Distribution integrated service, and behind the meter sectors. Prior to joining BYD in 2012, Michael served as an energy consultant at Southern California Edison’s energy efficiency program. He holds a Master’s of Engineering with a specialization in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy from Purdue University.

Nian Liu is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering since January 2017. He received his BS in 2009 from Fudan University (China), and PhD in 2014 from Stanford University, where he worked with Prof. Yi Cui on the structure design for Si anodes for high-energy Li-ion batteries. In 2014-2016, he worked with Prof. Steven Chu at Stanford University as a postdoc, where he developed in situ optical microscopy to probe beam-sensitive battery reactions. Dr. Liu’s lab at Georgia Tech is broadly interested in the combination of nanomaterials, electrochemistry, and light microscopy for understanding and addressing the global energy challenges. Dr. Liu is the recipient of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) Daniel Cubicciotti Award (2014) and American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator Award (2015).

As a certified senior industrial analyst of the biggest think-tank in Taiwan, Mark is responsible for research about battery-related industries in Taiwan, from material, cell, pack and related applications. Not only handling the official government statistics about Taiwan’s battery industries, he also plays a role in providing consultations to both the Taiwan government and companies worldwide. In the past six years, his clients have included the top 100 Taiwan companies and global enterprises like GM, VW, Intel, China Steel Company, China Petroleum Company and Japanese material companies. From 2010, he served as the deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Battery Association.

Thomas Lynn is the CMO and Technical Director of LiiON, LLC, a leading provider of lithium-based backup battery systems for standby power including large data center applications. Prior to joining LiiON, Thomas was the Director of UPS Sales and Support at NorthStar Battery Company developing products and solutions for the UPS market. Prior to NorthStar, Thomas was Director of Marketing and Product Management for C&D Technologies. Thomas also spent ten years as a Senior Marketing and Channel Management Consultant developing market strategies for fortune 500 companies, such as AT&T, Rockwell, Danaher and ABB in North America and Europe.

As an Electrical Engineer, I enjoyed the ‘80s in Silicon Valley, doing RF design & development for Military applications. The last three decades have been spent in the Battery industry. Starting on the Charger side for seven years, allowed great exposure to varied methodologies, across multiple chemistries. As an Applications Engineer for one of the world’s largest Cell manufacturers, it has enabled me unique vantage points during the evolution of chemistries; and their application in the marketplace. Combined, it has given me diverse insight into the backup and mobile battery powered world.

Dr. Manev has PhD in Electrochemistry from Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in and MSc in Physics from Sofia University, Bulgaria. He was professor of Bulgarian Academy of Science, head of its lithium battery department and Vice Director of its Institute of Electrochemical Power Sources. Dr. Manev has published over 100 papers and authored more than 40 patents, most of them in the field of lithium and lithium ion batteries. In total, Dr. Manev has over 41 years of experience in lithium cells, lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries. He was Director of R&D at Altairnano for 10 years before joining XALT Energy. During the last 4 years and present he is Senior Technical Director of XALT leading the development of LTO battery technologies.

Dr. Huanyu Mao, earned his PhD in Electrochemistry from Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada. He jointed Moli Energy in Vancouver in 1991 as a Research Scientist working in developing of Lithium Ion batteries. His patents of electrolyte additives in 1993 created Functional Electrolyte technology, that has been widely used in today’s Li-Ion battery industry. As a co-founder, Dr. Mao Started Tianjin Lishen Batteries in China in 1997. He jointed Shenzhen BAK battery in 2004 as CTO and COO. He works in Suzhou Youlion Battery as Chairman and CEO since 2014. Dr. Mao holds about 100 patents in Li-Ion technology and numerus publications.

Didier Marginèdes graduated from the Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité in 1978, he has a MS from Berkeley University (USA) obtained in 1979 and an Executive MBA from INSEAD obtained in 1989. After different experiences with Aerospatiale, Schlumberger (1981-86) and Air Liquide (1986-95), Mr. Marginedes joined the Bolloré Group as R&D Director. In 2001, he became General Manager of Blue Solutions subsidiary whose objectives were the development and sales of energy storage products such as batteries and supercapacitors, products mainly dedicated to clean energy transportation markets such as electric vehicles, electric buses and clean tram systems. He was also in charge of technical developments of Autolib’ and of the development of ESS solutions. In 2013, Mr. Marginedes participated in the IPO of Blue Solutions on the NYSE Euronext market in Paris and was named Executive Vice-President of the listed entity.

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

Amy Marschilok is a University Instructional Specialist and Research Professor at Stony Brook University, with a joint appointment at Brookhaven National Laboratory. She serves as COO for the Center for Mesoscale Transport Properties (http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/m2m/index.html), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy. Dr. Marschilok was previously employed as a Senior Scientist in Medical Battery R&D at Greatbatch, Inc., where she was recognized as a Visionary of the Year. Her current research goals center on new material and electrode concepts for high power, high energy density, extended life primary and secondary batteries. She has mentored over 50 student researchers and co-authored over 140 publications.

I received my BSc and PhD from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manitoba in the laboratory of Prof. Michael Freund (2015). My doctoral research focused on the development of synthetic membranes as separators/charge facilitators for photoelectrochemical conversion for highly integrated solar fuels approaches, where I gained specialization in electrochemically powered technologies (electrolysis, fuel cells and batteries). Upon completion, I was awarded a postdoc position at MIT in the laboratory of Paula Hammond, where I was responsible for designing a project in the field of lithium battery technology using polymer approaches as a contribution to the Center for Electrochemical Energy Systems (CEES) collaboration, participating along with other MIT PIs such as Yet Ming Chiang and Yang Shao-Horn. Here I developed a new polymer system for battery electrode binders that also optimizes conduction of both electrons and lithium to simultaneously enhance energy density and power density. After completing this and several other side projects, I joined MCI as a technology specialist in mid-2017 to bring this expertise to MCI's product electrification efforts, where I currently reside.

Dr. Y. Shirley Meng currently holds the Zable Chair Professor in Energy Technologies at University of California San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Meng is the principal investigator of the research group - Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC). The LESC research focuses on the direct integration of experimental techniques with first principles computation modeling for developing new materials and architectures for electrochemical energy storage. She is the founding Director of Sustainable Power and Energy Center (SPEC), consisting faculty members from interdisciplinary fields, who all focus on making breakthroughs in distributed energy generation, storage and the accompanying integration-management systems. She received several prestigious awards, including the 2018 Blavatnik National Awards finalist, American Chemical Society ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces Young Investigator Award (2018), C.W. Tobias Award of the Electrochemical Society (2016). She is the author and co-author of more than 170 peer-reviewed journal articles, two book chapters and four issued patents.

Celina Mikolajczak, a senior manager for battery pack development at Tesla, has been hired by Uber to help the ride-hail company’s “flying car” project get off the ground. It’s an important hire because it signals that Uber plans to get more involved in the engineering aspects of this outlandish-sounding project. For six years, Mikolajczak served as senior manager and technical lead for battery technology, cell quality, and materials analysis. She worked with Tesla’s suppliers, tested the car company’s lithium-ion batteries for long-term use, oversaw quality assurance, and conducted “failure analysis” to drive battery cell production and design improvements. In other words, Mikolajczak was in charge of making sure the most crucial component in Tesla’s entire assembly line was top of the line.

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

Bruce has more than 30 years of experience in the electronics industry, with the last 17 years focused on Lithium Ion battery technology, applications and failure analysis. His currently a Senior Product Safety Investigator at Dell Technologies and is a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator. He holds master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Business. He was a subcommittee chair and member of the IEEE 1625 standard and is currently a member of the UL 1642 STP.

Cindy Millsaps is President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Energy Assurance, LLC. Prior to establishing Energy Assurance, she worked in global regulatory approvals, quality systems management, product safety and product qualification testing with emphasis on information technology equipment, power/energy and batteries. Beginning her career with Underwriters Laboratories (UL) she moved to Motorola where she was part of the start-up management team at Motorola Product Testing Services. Cindy uses her expertise to understand changes in standards and what the changes mean to cell and battery manufacturers. She also helps define early in the process what to expect for testing and assists design engineers in planning to save time and money and meet deadlines. Many industry trade publications have published Cindy’s articles with special attention to her interpretation of changes in industry standards and how they impact cell manufacturers and suppliers. In addition to advising her clients, she serves on Underwriters Laboratories Standards Technical Panel for UL 62133, UL 1642 and UL 2054 where decisions are made that impact the future of the industry. Cindy holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University

Prof. Yifei Mo is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. Dr. Mo’s research aims to advance the understanding, design, and discovery of engineering materials through cutting-edge computational techniques. His current research projects target critical materials problems in energy storage and conversion technologies, with emphasis on all-solid-state batteries. Dr. Mo obtained his PhD degree in Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA (2005-2010), and performed his postdoctoral research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2010-2013). His research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Energy and Environmental Science, Advanced Energy Materials, Nano Letter, Chemistry of Materials, and Physical Review B.

Simon Moores is the managing director of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, an independent price assessment company for lithium, graphite and cobalt for the lithium ion battery supply chain. Simon has specialist knowledge in critical and strategic minerals and markets including graphite, lithium, cobalt, batteries, electric vehicles and China – a sector he has covered since 2006. He has specialised in the lithium ion battery supply chain, especially the upstream sector from mine to battery cell manufacturing. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has advised some of the world’s biggest actors in the lithium ion battery space from cell manufacturers, to electric vehicle producers to mining companies. In 2015, Simon and Benchmark advised Goldman Sachs on lithium and batteries in its Low Carbon Economy Report, and have worked with the likes of UBS, Deutsche Bank, CLSA, and Credit Suisse, on lithium ion battery supply chain roadshows. In addition, he launched subscription products, Benchmark Membership and Benchmark Data | Graphite and the events, Benchmark World Tour 2015 and Graphite Supply Chain 2016.

Calum is currently a Senior Scientist, PPG Mobility and is leading PPG's research efforts in electric vehicle battery packs and drivetrains. Calum joined PPG in 2006 and has held many leadership roles including Director, Industrial Coatings Research and Global Technical Director, Industrial Coatings. He has a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a BSc in Forensic and Analytical Chemistry from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Dr. Trung Hung Nguyen, Vice President EIC Labs., has more than 30 years of R&D experience in rechargeable Li-ion batteries. Dr. Nguyen has overall education in Science (PhD. in Chemistry from American University), Operation Research and Statistics (MS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and management of technology (MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management).

Jeff Norris, CEO leads a team that brought to market the highest capacity, cycle stable, validated anode material. Has several granted patents and a 50 TPA plant in Michigan. MBA Duke, E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year. Jeff brought a company from concept to NASDAQ IPO with investor’s shares worth 77:1.

Bradley Odhner is a physicist and applications engineer for Keithley Instruments and Tektronix in Cleveland. He holds a BA in Physics from Case Western Reserve University and is currently the applications engineer for Keithley's battery simulator product line. He is also responsible for low level current applications of Keithley’s SourceMeter Source Measure Units and Digital Multimeters including transistor research, battery characterization, and laser diode development. The rest of his time at Keithley has been spent as applications engineer for the 4200A-SCS Parameter Analyzer.

Mr. Ota is the Chief Technology Officer of 24M, joining the company in 2012. A recognized global expert in lithium-ion batteries, he co-founded Quallion in 2001 to serve the medical and aerospace industries. Subsequently, as CTO and COO of Enerdel/Ener1, he led the HEV, PHEV, EV and grid storage product lines, successfully developing 1GWh of global production capacity.

Prof. M. Rosa Palacín received her PhD in materials science for the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 1995. She is permanent researcher at Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona since 1999. Her research career has been fully focused in rechargeable battery materials initially either nickel-based or lithium-based to more recently deviate to alternative chemistries such as sodium-ion and now also calcium. Specific emphasis is set in tailoring structure and microstructure of electrode materials to maximise electrochemical performance for traditional technologies and in the development of new electrolytes for emerging technologies. She has led diverse battery research projects with either public or industrial funding and has been actively involved in the direction of the ALISTORE European virtual Research Institute devoted to battery research. She is currently associate editor for Chemistry of Materials and member of the boards of International Battery Association (IBA) and IMLB.

Dr. Park founded Enevate and leads its battery research and development. He is an expert in surface and bulk chemistries, novel battery manufacturing techniques, battery materials screening and development, and battery chemistry. Ben has authored 40+ technical journal and conference publications and has 70+ patents issued or filed. Ben holds a doctorate in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the University of California, Irvine, a MSEE from Purdue University, and a BSEE from Seoul National University.

Mr. Anil Paryani is CTO at Auto Motive Power, Inc and continues to serve as a Chief Advisor to BTCPower, Inc. Mr. Paryani was a Senior Engineer at Tesla Motors, Honda Motors, and AeroVirnoment and Director of Battery and Charging Systems at Faraday Future. He has more than 25 years of electric vehicle experience and over 20 patents in the field of battery management and EVs. He specializes in developing software for battery and charging controls. He has a BSEE of California State Polytechnic University, where he was a member of there Solar Car and Hybrid Electric Vehicle programs.

Having trained as a physicist before moving to engineering, Yatish is interested in developing engineering solutions centred around scientific understanding of lithium ion batteries. His research portfolio focuses on understanding degradation mechanisms, failure modes and the limits of operation of batteries and the impact these have on system design and control.

Dr. Pesaran holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Los Angeles. He has worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory since 1983 on various energy efficiency technologies in building, advanced air conditioning, and automotive batteries. Dr. Pesaran started working on batteries, hybrid electric, and fuel cell vehicles in 1995, collaborating with car and battery manufacturers on battery thermal analysis and battery pack thermal management issues as part of the US Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Programs. He currently leads several projects for Department of Energy and industrial partners, which include thermal characterization and analysis of batteries, modeling and simulation of batteries and ultracapacitors, use for hybrid and plug-in vehicles, and battery secondary use. He is an active member of the FreedomCAR Electrochemical Energy Storage Technical Team and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers and American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Beran is a leader in innovating environmental test chambers by incorporating designs into products that make product testing easier to manage. First, Beran developed software that gives you total access to your chamber from virtually anywhere using your secure network. Now, battery testing is easier and safer with the ATP.

Christophe has built up considerable expertise in the area of battery market. He joined AVICENNE 25 years ago and Spend 3 years in Japan making analysis on the Electronic, Mobile & Japanese battery market. Christophe gained large experience in marketing, strategy analysis, technology and financial studies for the battery and power management fields.He developed the Battery market analysis for AVICENNE which counts more than 280 customers worldwide. Christophe published several annual surveys like “The rechargeable battery market 2018-2025”. He is also the founder & chairman of Batteries congress in France since 1999. Batteries 2019 (21st Edition) will be held in Nice, France, from October 21st to October 24th, 2019. Christophe is now Director of AVICENNE ENERGY.

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

Tim Powers joined ZPower in 2004 and has been a critical part of the effort to commercialize silver-zinc battery technology. During his time at ZPower, Tim’s contributions include co-creating ZPower's patented charge algorithm and battery management systems. Tim was also instrumental in the design & development of ZPower’s Application Specific Integrated Circuit: the Z125 hybrid DC-DC converter for silver-zinc rechargeable microbatteries. BS Electrical Engineering, California State University Northridge, 1994.

Rob Privette, Business Development Manager, North America for Umicore Rechargeable Battery Materials (RBM) is the prime OEM and customer interface in North America and develops new RBM strategic business. He has more than 30 years of experience developing and commercializing new products in the battery and fuel cell industries. He has an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and has completed M.B.A. coursework. Before rejoining Umicore he was Vice President Energy Markets at XG Sciences, a Michigan-based start-up commercializing graphene-based lithium battery materials. In this role he created and grew XGS' Energy Materials business targeting silicon/graphene anode materials and graphene conductive additives for lithium-ion batteries. Prior to that he was Product Development Director and U.S. Fuel Cell Development Director at Ovonic Energy Conversion Devices and Umicore Fuel Cells respectively.

Dr. Kris Pupek is the Group Leader for Process R&D and Scale Up in the Applied Materials Division. The group evaluates emerging synthesis techniques and develops scalable processes for manufacturing of advanced materials including organic, inorganic, polymeric and nanomaterials to support basic research and industrial evaluation. Kris earned his PhD in Organic Chemistry and Technology in 1993 from Institute of Organic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences. He gained his experience working for nearly 20 years for various contract research and manufacturing organizations leading efforts for developing new chemistry routes and feasible processes for manufacturing pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and specialty chemicals. In 2010 Kris joined Argonne National Laboratory as Principal Process R&D Chemist in Material Engineering Research Facility. He has co-authored over 20 publications, 15 issued patents, numerous patent applications and invention disclosures, technical reports and presentations.

Dr. Qiao is a professor at the University of California, San Diego. He is a material scientist, with the expertise in the area of failure analysis and prevention. He invented the mechanically triggered battery safety techniques in 2017.

Murali Ramasubramanian co-founded Enovix Corporation in 2007, where he serves as vice president of research and development. Prior to Enovix, Murali was involved in the development of new materials and structures at FormFactor, a leader in the design and production of patented 3D MEMS contact technology for semiconductor wafer testing. Previously, at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center and Storage Systems Division, Murali was responsible for research, development, and implementation of novel high-moment magnetic materials essential to achieving a 10X increase in the areal density of hard-disk drives. Murali earned a BS in chemical and electrochemical engineering from the Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI) in Karaikudi, India and a PhD from the University of South Carolina in chemical engineering. He has been cited as an inventor on over 30 patents or patent applications in electromechanical materials, processes, and architectures.

Matthew Rappaport co-founded IP Checkups in 2004 to assist companies in extracting maximum value from patent analytics, to increase organizational knowledge and to help strengthen companies' return on technology investment. Matt specializes in IP strategy, patent landscape analysis, analytics, valuations and market research to help companies align their IP strategy with their business objectives and monetize their IP assets.

Craig Rigby joined Johnson Controls in 2007 and currently serves as the Vice President - Technology for Power Solutions. Rigby has played a key role in developing business and product strategies to shape the rapid changes in automotive battery technology over the last decade and is seen as a thought leader in the vehicle electrification and energy storage. In his current role, Rigby leads the development of Power Solutions industry point of view, by synthesizing an understanding of market drivers, customer strategies, application requirements and emerging battery technology. He also leads the advanced engineering activities within Power Solutions, including technology scouting, product development partnerships, vehicle systems analysis, and competitive product benchmarking. In his time at Johnson Controls, Rigby has held several leadership roles in Product Engineering and Product Management where he had overall responsibility for product road-mapping and development for the full product line of automotive energy storage products. Rigby holds a Master of Science in Engineering Management from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan and a Bachelor of Science in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Robert has been with Integer, formerly Greatbatch, for 21 years in battery R&D, focused on technology development. His work has spanned both primary lithium and rechargeable lithium cells for implantable and non-implantable medical devices. He also leads the Engineering Services group within Integer which provides analytical testing, computational modeling and technical expertise in materials science.

Cyrus Rustomji received his PhD in 2015 from UC San Diego in Material Science with a focus in novel Liquefied Gas Electrolytes for Electrochemical Energy Storage Devices (i.e., Lithium Metal batteries and Electrochemical Double Layer Capacitors). He is currently Chief Technology Officer at South 8 Technologies working to develop and commercialize these unique electrolyte chemistries for a variety of applications. Prior to obtaining his PhD, he worked with Cooper Bussmann (now Eaton) from 2010-2013 as a Material Scientist and Development Engineer on research and development of Electrochemical Capacitors. He also worked with ZPower on electrode development for rechargeable Silver-Zinc batteries. He has eight issued and pending patents related to electrochemical energy storage devices.

Donald R. Sadoway is the John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. With the BASc in Engineering Science and PhD in Chemical Metallurgy from the University of Toronto he joined the MIT faculty in 1978. The author of over 170 scientific papers and holder of 29 US patents, his research is directed towards rechargeable batteries as well as environmentally sound technologies for metals extraction. He is the founder of two companies, Ambri and Boston Metal. Online videos of his chemistry lectures hosted by MIT OpenCourseWare extend his impact on engineering education far beyond the lecture hall. Viewed 1,800,000 times, his TED talk is as much about inventing inventors as it is about inventing technology. In 2012 he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Michael Sakamoto is the Senior Business Development Manager for UL managing the development of safety services with focus on battery and electrical safety with consumer products, most recently with new emerging products segments. He has been with UL for 8 years and brings commercial and business development background from working with major manufacturers for over 15 years including Sony Electronics and Pioneer Electronics managing sales distribution, supply chain, logistics and development of new business models.

Lisa Salley is the President of the Energy Systems & Safety Institute, a Washington DC-based hybrid think tank and incubator focused on eliminating scalability issues that impede evolution of critical technologies required for our 2040 and beyond electric grid. The ultimate mission is to improve scalability of energy systems such that mass adoption is accelerated. The Institute is specifically focused on microgrids and energy storage systems. Additionally, Lisa serves as the Senior Managing Partner of the Heritage Solutions Group. Just prior to starting HSG, Lisa was an award-winning entrepreneur. She founded Heritage Capital Services which has focused on financing in emerging and underserved urban markets. She has spent over 30 years in corporate America, including senior executive positions at GE, Dow, Underwriters’ Laboratories, and the American Petroleum Institute. Early career experiences were with DuPont. Her corporate appointments spanned from Materials Nuclear Engineer to Chief Strategy & Growth Officer to Senior Vice President. In 2017-18, Lisa lead a global team in Oil and Gas which yielded 34% improvement above plan without jeopardizing the 2018 financials. Prior experiences include doubling the size of a specialty chemical business within 5 years – including defining segment priorities and the roadmap to ensure global coordination and global execution of strategy – as well as leading the business development, design, and execution of the go- to-market strategy for a $13B market expansion opportunity in a highly regulated market. Earlier career experiences included worldwide leadership for overall growth and management of a $100M specialty chemical product line in an over-capacity market with double digit price erosion and 70% of sales outside the US. Results included 18% increased revenue, +3% price realization, on-time delivery rates at 99%, introduction of the first new product in 5 years, and launch of Asia-based operations. Lisa brings the following functional expertise: Growth/Restructuring/Operational Due Diligence; Strategy, P&L Leadership, Assessment, Alignment, & Implementation; Business Process Management & Improvement; Project Management & Six Sigma; Emerging/New Markets & New Products: Commercialization, Market Entry & Market Exit; Market Analysis: Sizing, Needs Assessments, Segmentation, Portfolio Gap Review; and Testing & Measurement: Effectiveness, Profitability, ROI. Lisa can be summarized as a “tale of two cities”. Specifically, she is both an award-winning entrepreneur and an award winning corporate executive. She has also developed human talent in 100-year-old industrial brands but also built, trained, and developed talent required in today’s fast paced technological world. And, she has mastered concurrent leadership of strategic revenue growth and sustainable cost structure improvement to yield double digit, sustainable results. She has been repeatedly recognized for leadership and execution abilities. She is most well known for innovation, profitable growth, and execution. Further, she is a Six Sigma certified Master Black Belt and has a BS in Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon and an MS in Industrial and Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She serves on several community boards, is an avid genealogist, and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. In addition to her professional and civic responsibilities, Lisa is an ardent advocate for Alzheimer’s.

Paul Schiffbänker earned his Master of Science degree at University of Technology Graz, Austria in mechanical engineering and business economics. During studying he completed a one-year study visit at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. In 2016, he finished his studies with a diploma thesis on applying and evaluation Model-Based Systems Engineering to the development of battery systems. During his studies, he worked at MAGNA Steyr in the field of electrified powertrain development and at BMW in the field of supplier management. He was also involved in a student project funded by the company FRONIOUS, for which he managed a one-year project in which he and his project team successfully developed an innovative small-sized lithium-ion stationary battery system. In March 2016, Paul Schiffbänker accepted a position at the globally operating engineering service provider AVL List GmbH. Following one year of work in the battery systems development group, he now serves as Product Manager Electrification. His global responsibilities include the global business development and technical sales for traction battery module and pack development, battery benchmarking as well as all battery related services at AVL.

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

Austin Sendek is the Founder and CEO of AIONICS, the leading platform for machine learning-enabled battery design. Before AIONICS, Austin pioneered machine learning-based approaches to solid electrolyte design as a PhD student at Stanford.

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

Dr. Michael Siegal is a materials scientist at Sandia National Laboratories since 1992 after leaving AT&T Bell Laboratories, and is presently in the Department of Nanoscale Sciences. His work centers around nanomaterial fabrications and structures, thin films, and a variety of structural, electronic, and thermal characterization methods. Carbon research includes nanoporous-carbon, carbon nanotube arrays, and diamond-like carbon, with applications involving electrochemical energy storage, chemical sensing, cold-cathode field emission, thermal interface materials, and ultrahard transparent coatings. Other areas of interest include development of nanoarray electrochemical sensors, nano-electrophoretic devices, novel methods to grow functional film materials at low temperatures, new materials to explore electron-hopping mechanisms, thermoelectrics, superconductors, and radiation detection. He has ~150 publications, numerous invited presentations, and several patents.

Mattias Simonsson joined Stanley Black & Decker at the end of 2015 and is responsible for managing the battery supply base for the corporation worldwide. This role requires Mattias to interact primarily with the cordless businesses of the Professional Products Group and the Consumer Products Group within the Global Tools & Storage Division of Stanley Black & Decker. Prior to joining Stanley Black & Decker, Mattias spent more than 15 years in various roles within strategic sourcing, project management, business development and operations. He has been based both in Europe and North America, working in telecommunication, data communication and industrial segments of Fortune 500 companies. He has spent more than 10 years managing strategic relationships and securing executive level alignment between large global corporations. Mattias holds a MSc degree in Industrial Engineering & Management from Linkoping Institute of Technology, Sweden and diploma in languages and communication from the Vienna University, Austria. He lives in Baltimore, MD with his wife.

Dr. Song is a battery expert, in particular, on the SEI control and interfacial chemistry. Song's recent work is focused on the development of stable cathode-electrolyte interface at high-voltages and non-flammable electrolytes for high-energy density and non-explosive lithium-ion batteries, and rechargeable magnesium batteries. She is the author of over 100 refereed journal papers and co-inventor of 43 inventions with patents issued or filed.

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

Dr. Spotnitz is a leading developer of mathematical models that simulate battery operation. Dr. Spotnitz, who previously held several senior technical positions in materials and battery development, founded Battery Design in 1999 to provide consulting and develop custom software for battery developers and users. He is a well-known speaker on various aspects of battery engineering.

Suresh Sriramulu, PhD serves as the Head of Development at CAMX Power. He has been involved in Li-ion battery technology development for the past 14 years, including the development of CAMX Power's high nickel cathode materials and safety technologies. He received degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington ? Seattle, University of Wyoming ? Laramie, and the Indian Institute of Technology ? Madras.

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

Mr. Akiyoshi Suzuki received M.S. degree in Engineering from Shizuoka University, Japan in 2007 and then joined the Institute of Semiconductor and Electronics Technologies(ISET) in ULVAC, Inc. He has been developing manufacturing technology for all-solid-state thin-film secondary batteries based on vacuum technology such as sputtering, evaporation and polymerization techniques since 2010.<

Tushar Swamy is a Sr. Cell Engineer at Uber Elevate, working on the team developing an urban aviation electric ride-sharing product called UberAir. Prior to Uber Elevate, Tushar was at A123 systems where he developed and deployed 20Ah pouch cell advanced manufacturing and quality control methods. Dr. Swamy earned his PhD from MIT, where his thesis focused on interfaces in solid-state lithium metal batteries.

Bob Taenaka is a senior technical leader in xEV Traction Batteries and Battery Cell Technology at Ford Motor Company, responsible for battery cell technology and battery system performance in support of Ford's present and near-term future production hybrid and electric vehicles. Bob's team also carries out battery system sizing and performance/life modeling/validation activities. In this role, Bob also supports the technical oversight of battery cell suppliers, helping to bring their cell design and manufacturing quality processes to automotive standards. Prior to joining Ford in 2001, Mr. Taenaka spent 18 years with Hughes Space & Communications, serving as battery engineer for the Galileo Probe mission to Jupiter; principal investigator or program manager for several nickel-hydrogen and sodium-sulfur battery development efforts, and had responsibility for in-orbit support on battery usage for satellite customers and ground stations.

Wyatt E. Tenhaeff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Rochester. Wyatt received his BS in Chemical Engineering in 2004 from Oregon State University and a PhD in Chemical Engineering in 2009 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Following his PhD, Wyatt won a Weinberg Fellowship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he later joined as a Staff Scientist in the Materials Science and Technology Division. In 2013, Wyatt moved to the University of Rochester. His current research interests are energy storage, conventional lithium-ion batteries, solid state lithium-metal batteries, and polymer thin film technologies. He has received recognitions including an R&D 100 award for his work on safe impact resistant electrolytes and the Curtis Award for Nontenured Faculty Teaching at the University of Rochester.

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

Rick is a member of the Client Solutions Technical Staff within the Office of the CTO at Dell Technologies. With more than 25 years in the industry, Rick has proven experience in product design, technical team leadership, technology strategy planning, and developing supplier relationships. Rick’s current focus is driving battery technology adoption to enable always ready mobile and worry free power experiences in Dell products. Prior to joining Dell, Rick held numerous design, development, and product integration roles at Valence Technology, and Ultralife Batteries.

Steve Tolen is the founder and president/CEO of Indie Power Systems. Under his leadership, Indie Power Systems has earned 6 patents in energy management and is the first to integrate secondary-use batteries into a commercial energy storage system. Indie Power Systems' technology is a key enabler for the integration of secondary-use batteries in energy storage applications. Mr. Tolen holds a BS degree in finance from the University of Illinois and has experience in successful turnaround and startup situations. He serves as Chairman of the Society of Automotive Engineering (SAE) Secondary Battery Use Committee and has presented at major conferences such as NAATBatt, The Battery Show and the Electrical Energy Storage Applications and Technologies (EESAT) Technical conference.

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

Battery microstructure researcher (2016-) at National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Colorado USA Microstructure characterization of Li-ion battery electrodes (NMC and Graphite) to provide relevant parameters used in macroscopic battery models and to get a better understanding about the relationships and correlation between these variables. Direct numerical 3D electrochemical simulation on battery intercalation electrodes to explore inhomogeneity and degradation in the electrode microstructure. PhD student (2011-2015) at CEA - Laboratory for Innovation in New Energy Technologies and Nanomaterials, France. Optimization of the performances and the robustness of an electrolyzer at high temperatures, through multi-physics and multi-scale modelling and electrode microstructure characterization and homogenization.

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

Dr Matthias Vetter, Electrical Engineer, 20 years of experience at Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. PhD thesis in the field of modelling and development of control strategies for fuel cell systems. Until 2016 head of department “PV off-grid solutions and battery system technology”. Since 2017 head of department „Electrical energy storage“. Work topics among others: Autonomous systems and mini-grids, decentralized grid-connected PV battery systems, development of battery systems for stationary and automotive applications. Development and optimization of battery management systems, energy management systems as well as supervisory control strategies.

Bill von Novak has been at Qualcomm Technologies Incorporated since 1994, when he worked on early CDMA base stations and handsets. Since then, he has been working in the field of wireless power transmission, embedded systems design, smart grid power management and battery charging. He now leads the wireless power group at Qualcomm. He spearheaded the formation of the AirFuel Alliance and has remained active in that organization. 288 patents have been issued in his name in almost a dozen countries, most covering wireless power transmission.

William Q. Walker received his BS in Mechanical Engineering at West Texas A&M University (WTAMU) and is currently a PhD candidate in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Houston (UH). Walker’s research activities are concentrated on developing new understanding of lithium-ion battery thermal runaway mechanisms. Walker has been employed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Johnson Space Center (JSC) for six years where he works to design battery assemblies for human spaceflight applications capable of safely mitigating the effects of thermal runaway and preventing cell-to-cell propagation.

Dr. Chao-Yang Wang is William E. Diefenderfer Chair in Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Materials Science & Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. He has been the founding director of Penn State Electrochemical Engine Center (ECEC) and Battery and Energy Storage Technology (BEST) center. Dr. Wang holds over 50 patents (U.S., China, EU and Japan) and has published two books, “Battery Systems Engineering” by Wiley and “Modeling and Diagnostics of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells” by Springer. His recent work on all-climate battery (ACB) technology was published in the journal Nature, later selected by 2022 Winter Olympic Games to power electric vehicles serving the Games, as well as adopted by several carmakers. His more recent invention on fast charging batteries appeared in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and was covered by mainstream media such as Popular Mechanics. In 2011 he founded AutoLion, a Li-ion battery simulation software business that was later acquired by Gamma Technologies. Dr. Wang’s research interests cover the transport, materials, manufacturing and modeling aspects of batteries and fuel cells.

Feng Wang is a Materials Scientist in the Sustainable Energy Technologies Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory. He obtained his PhD in Condensed Matter Physics from University of Alberta in 2007. He is currently a Principal Investigator leading multiple projects in design and synthesis of advanced electrode materials for next-generation batteries in electric vehicles and other large-scale applications. He has published more than 70 papers, 2 patents, and 3 book chapters.

Jim Watkins is a Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering and Director of the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing, a National Science Foundation Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Professor Watkins received his BS and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and his PhD in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts. He joined the Chemical Engineering faculty at UMass in 1996 and the Polymer Science and Engineering Faculty in 2005. Professor Watkins has authored more than 100 papers in leading journals and has presented more than 200 invited lectures across the globe. He has out licensed technology in electronics, energy storage and advanced optics. Prof. Watkins is a recipient of the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award and a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Dr. Wolfgang Weydanz is an expert in battery technologies and applications with special focus on lithium-ion and metal-air batteries. He has 27 years of expertise in the field, starting with a MSc in physics with Jeff Dahn in Vancouver, Canada, followed by a PhD at ZSW in Ulm, Germany. Topics were graphite and silicon anode materials respectively. Afterwards he worked with battery companies GAIA Akkumulatorenwerke and Sanyo Component in Germany and ReVolt Technology Ltd in Switzerland. Then he shifted more to the application side as key principal expert at Siemens Corporate Technology, working on stationary storages and traction applications. Currently he is working for Robert Bosch GmbH as senior expert in the eBike division. He has further written a book on multiple battery technologies and applications, published a dozen scientific publications and holds 40+ patents.

Jay Whitacre is Professor of Materials Science& Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also the Founder and Chief Technology Officer for Aquion Energy, an energy storage technology firm. Dr. Whitacre’s research focuses on the implications of materials and technologies for the energy sector. These topics include the economics of scaled production, lifecycle analyses (including analyzing the "energy footprint" of manufacturing energy related products), the implications of broad adoption of new energy technologies, large-scale energy storage devices, and concurrent engineering analyses of power systems. His materials science work focuses on synthesizing and implementing promising materials and device architectures for energy storage and generation technologies. His work resulted in the conception of a novel sodium-ion battery based on low-cost materials and related manufacturing techniques. In 2008 he founded the predecessor to Aquion Energy, which has grown to over 130 employees since spinning out of Carnegie Mellon University in late 2009. Dr. Whitacre earned his PhD in Materials Science from the University of Michigan and his BA in Physics from Oberlin College.

Sheldon S. Williamson received his Bachelors of Engineering (B.E.) degree in Electrical Engineering with high distinction from University of Mumbai, India, in 1999. He received the Masters of Science (MS) degree in 2002, and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree (with Honors) in 2006, both in Electrical Engineering, from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL. From June 2006 to June 2014, Dr. Williamson held a tenure-track Assistant Professor position, followed by a tenured Associate Professor position in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, at Concordia University, in Montreal, Canada. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering, at the University of Ontario-Institute of Technology (UOIT), in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. He also holds the prestigious NSERC Canada Research Chair in Electric Energy Storage Systems for Transportation Electrification. Dr. Williamson’s research interests include electric energy storage systems, power electronics, and motor drives for e-transportation and autonomous e-mobility applications. Dr. Williamson is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society.

Dr. Margret Wohlfahrt-Mehrens is head of Electrochemical Materials Research Department at ZSW (Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research) in Ulm, Germany. She studied chemistry at the University of Bonn, where she received her diploma in 1984. She made her doctoral thesis in the field of electro catalysis at the University of Witten-Herdecke and received her PhD in Chemistry in 1989. She started her work at ZSW in 1990 and worked as project leader for various National and Industrial founded projects in the field of new energy technologies and new materials for energy storage systems. Since 1995 she is leading the Department of Accumulators Materials Research at ZSW. The research work is integrated in an international network of universities, industrial and institutional co-operations. The group has a high level of expertise in the field of synthesis and characterization of novel battery materials as well as in electrode processing techniques and cell evaluation and analysis. In addition, since 2011 she is PI (Principal Investigator) of Materials II (composite/hybride materials) group at the Helmholtz Institute Ulm – Electrochemical Energy Storage (HIU). She is member of the board of directors group at the Helmholtz Institute Ulm – Electrochemical Energy Storage (HIU).

David Wood is a Senior Staff Scientist and University of Tennessee Bredesen Center Faculty Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) researching novel electrode architectures, mass transport phenomena, solid-liquid surface chemistry, advanced processing methods, manufacturing science, and materials characterization for low-temperature fuel cells, PEM electrolyzers, and lithium-ion batteries, and has been employed there since 2009. He is a well-known energy conversion and storage researcher with an industrial and academic career that began in 1995. From 1997 to 2002, he was employed by General Motors Corporation and SGL Carbon Group, excelling at applied R&D related to automotive and stationary PEFC technology. Later work (2003-2009) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Cabot Corporation focused on elucidation of key chemical degradation mechanisms, development of accelerated testing methods, and component development. Dr. Wood received his BS in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1994, his MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas in 1998, and his PhD in Electrochemical Engineering from the University of New Mexico in 2007.

Huolin Xin graduated from the Physics Department of Cornell University in 2011 and joined University of California, Irvine in 2018. Prior to becoming a professor at UCI, he worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory as a scientific staff member and a principle investigator from 2013 to 2018. His primary field of expertise lies in developing novel 3D, atomic-resolution, and in situ spectroscopic and imaging tools to probe the structural, chemical, and bonding changes of energy materials during chemical reactions or under external stimuli.

Dr. Wu Xu is currently a Chief Scientist in the Energy and Environment Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He has expertise and more than 25 years’ experience in developing novel electrolytes and electrode materials and in investigating electrode/electrolyte interfaces for various energy-storage systems. Before joining PNNL in April 2008, he was a Senior Scientist for four years in the electrolyte business of Ferro Corporation, which has given him broader knowledge and practical experience of nonaqueous electrolytes for energy storage devices, especially Li-ion batteries. Dr. Xu has published about 150 papers in peer-reviewed professional journals, 1 book and 5 book chapters, and holds 26 US patents and other 14 patents pending. He has won several awards in United States and China, including one PNNL Inventor-of-the-Year in 2013, and one R&D 100 Award in 2012.

Chuanbo Yang is currently an Energy Storage Engineer at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). At NREL, he is dedicated to developing research and developing capabilities in li-ion battery life and safety modeling, battery thermal management, and battery packaging technique. Prior to joining NREL in 2012, he worked in an electric vehicle company as a Battery Modeling Scientist. He received a PhD degree in mechanical engineering from University of Toledo with specialization in aerodynamic flow control and computational fluid dynamics.

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

Dr. Hui Ye is a Senior Principal Scientist at Medtronic Energy and Component Center. Dr. Ye received his PhD degree in Material Science and Engineer at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in 2007. Dr. Ye’s major expertise lies in different battery technologies, including Ni/MH batteries, metal air batteries, rechargeable Li ion batteries and Li primary batteries. He is an active Electrochemical Society member with more than 40 peer reviewed papers published.

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

Jigang Zhou, staff scientist at Canadian Light Source and adjunct professor at Western University and HIT, received his BSc and MSc in Battery Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in China and PhD in Chemistry from Western University, Canada. He has 10 years’ on-field battery R&D experience and almost 10 years’ synchrotron energy industrial application experience. His research activities are on developing soft X-ray spectroscopy and spectromicroscopy of on operando electrochemical cell, combined with various nanomaterials, for their applications for clean energy including Li-ion batteries and fuel cells. Dr. Zhou is an author and co-author of ~ 100 refereed-journals, with total citation of over 10,000 and H-index of 37.

Scott works directly with customers to develop solution-based coating and drying equipment for a variety of industries, including batteries, capacitors, fuel cells and medical. Scott has extensive problem solving experience in the coating industry, he has been with Frontier for over 17 years. His background includes both engineering and R&D.