JCESR - Key Persons
Argonne Chemist, Baris Key has been involved in fundamental characterization and guided synthesis studies in the energy storage field since 2006.
Bill Walsh, Deputy Director, Operations is responsible for effectively managing the mission support needs of JCESR. This includes the responsibility for leading and managing teams across the JCESR partner set involving fiscal management, human/capital management, technology and resource allocation, major infrastructure planning, ESH & QA, program review/reporting, internal and external communications, and adherence to policies, procedures, directives and regulations.
Job Titles:
- Lead Principal Investigator / Science of Material Complexity Thrust
Brian Ingram, Argonne National Laboratory, serves on the JCESR Directorate and has been a contributing investigator in the Multivalent Intercalation Thrust since 2013. In this role, he worked to develop, synthesize, and characterize magnesium and calcium intercalation host structures for next-generation batteries. Ingram established the first reported reversible non-aqueous calcium-ion battery system, which was a critical publication to encourage further research in this area. Additionally, Ingram utilized solid-state impedance spectroscopy directly measuring the long-range transport of Mg 2+ in materials in direct support of NMR and DFT efforts.
As Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, Donald Siegel's contributions to JCESR focus on atomic scale modeling of multivalent and precipitation/dissolution systems. He also serves in a leadership role as a member of the JCESR Directorate.
Job Titles:
- Keough - Hesburgh Professor
- Lead Principal Investigator
Edward Maginn is the Keough-Hesburgh Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. His research group develops and applies advanced molecular simulation methods to study the structure and thermophysical properties of charged fluids.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fik Brushett is an Associate Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has been involved in JCESR since its inception in varying roles, where he collaborated closely with the entire partner set. The focus of his work was both to establish rigorous materials design criteria for next-generation redox flow batteries and to develop appropriate testing platforms for novel redox chemistries.
Job Titles:
- Argonne National Laboratory Senior Scientist and Distinguished Fellow
- Senior Scientist and Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory
It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to George Crabtree, a Senior Scientist and Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory, and Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), who passed away unexpectedly on January 23. Dr.
George Crabtree, an Argonne National Laboratory Senior Scientist and Distinguished Fellow, was the Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research from JCESR's founding in 2012 until his death in January 2023. As JCESR Director, Crabtree directed the overall strategy and goals of the research program and operational plan, acted as liaison to executives of JCESR partner organizations, and represented JCESR with external constituencies and advisory committees.
Job Titles:
- Co - Lead Scientist / Science of Material Complexity Thrust
Gerbrand Ceder is recognized internationally for his achievements in developing novel battery materials and success in managing multidisciplinary research teams through all phases of the innovation cycle, from basic science to commercialization. During the past two decades, his research at MIT and Berkeley Lab - which combines computational modeling with experimental research − has focused on computational materials science, energy generation and storage, novel materials design, nanotechnology, and thermodynamics.
Job Titles:
- Lead Principal Investigator
Jeff Moore is the Stanley O. Ikenberry Endowed Chair at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and former Director for the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. His team focuses on molecular and materials science, neuroscience, biomedical imaging, language science, and behavioral health. He is responsible for leading approximately 1,500 researchers from 40+ different campus departments and associated research staff.
Joaquin Rodriguez-Lopez leads a group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a programmatic focus to advance cutting-edge electroanalysis - to address pressing challenges in high-performance energy storage and conversion.
Kang Xu, Army Research Laboratory, has extensive expertise in electrolytes and interphasial chemistries. He is an authority in electrolyte materials and fundamental science of interphases; high voltage non-aqueous, aqueous and hybrid electrolytes; non-flammable electrolytes; solvation-interphase correlation; and the interphase-formation mechanism model, In addition, he holds 12 patents.
Job Titles:
- Chief Science and Technology Officer in the Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
- Lead Scientist
Karl Mueller is the Chief Science and Technology Officer in the Physical and Computational Sciences Directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He began his work in JCESR in 2012 as a key research staff member and took on the position of Lead Scientist for the Crosscutting Science Thrust in 2015 and has served as the PNNL Lead Principal Investigator in JCESR since then.
Job Titles:
- Lead Principal Investigator
Kevin Zavadil, Sandia National Laboratories, served as Lead Principal Investigator for the Chemical Transformation Thrust, responsible for developing the science and demonstration prototypes for several electrochemical conversion reactions, including: metal-oxygen, lithium-sulfur, and high efficiency lithium and magnesium deposition/dissolution to support conversion and intercalation chemistries.
Job Titles:
- Lead Scientist
- Lead Scientist, Liquid Solvation Science Thrust
Kristin Persson, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a recognized leader in the field of high-throughput genomic design of materials for energy storage applications. In the fall of 2008, she started a single-investigator group at Berkeley Lab where she manages associates involved in diverse materials science research activities.
Persson co-founded The Materials Project, a public materials property and design platform based on high-throughput, first-principles calculations and a cutting-edge automated computational and data storage/analysis software infrastructure. The Materials Project employs an approach to materials science inspired by genomics, but rather than sequencing genomes, researchers use supercomputers to characterize the properties of inorganic compounds.
Persson has received numerous awards for her work including TMS 2017 Early Career Faculty Fellow Award and The Berkeley Lab Director's Award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement.
Argonne Assistant Chemist, Lei Cheng uses computational methods to study catalytic reactions and develop materials for energy storage applications. She uses first principles understanding of key phenomena to advance basic and applied science in energy storage and catalysis.
Job Titles:
- Co - Lead Scientist / Science of Material Complexity Thrust
Linda Nazar, a leading authority on advanced materials for electrochemical energy storage and conversion, teaches chemistry and electrical engineering at the University of Waterloo. For the past 15 years, she has concurrently led and integrated a highly regarded research team that investigates new nanomaterials with potential to change the efficiency of how electricity is stored. Among its many accomplishments, Nazar's team has developed highly ordered interwoven composites that allow lithium-sulfur batteries to approach their theoretical energy density of approximately 2,600 wH/kg − a huge leap over the 200 wH/kg of today's most energy-dense battery cells.
Job Titles:
- Materials Scientist in
- Research Integration Officer
Lynn Trahey is a materials scientist in JCESR where she leads scientific integration efforts as Research Integration Officer. A staff scientist at Argonne National Laboratory since 2010, Trahey's research focuses on electrodeposition, anodization, and operando characterization of materials and interfaces for advanced secondary batteries.
Trahey graduated with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2007, where she studied the fabrication and device application of nanostructured thermoelectric materials under the NASA Graduate Student Research Program. She received the 2012 Northwestern University-Argonne Early Career Investigator Award for Energy Research for her work on artificial solid electrolyte interphases for lithium-ion batteries. Trahey is also passionate about conducting and improving a new paradigm for team science and is an integral part of this effort within JCESR.
Melanie Sanford is an internationally renowned leader in the fields of catalysis, organic synthesis, and energy storage. She has won numerous awards, including the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the Blavatnik Prize.
Nathan Hahn received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012, completing his graduate work in photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion. From 2012-2018 Hahn worked as a postdoc at Sandia National Laboratories studying electrolytes and interfaces for electrochemical energy storage in JCESR's Charge Transfer at Dynamic Interfaces Thrust.
Job Titles:
- Lead Principal Investigator
Nitash Balsara, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is an internationally recognized expert in polymer materials with 24 years of success across the innovation pipeline and diverse Fortune 500, national laboratory, university, and start-up organizations. His multidisciplinary Berkeley Lab research team developed the breakthrough nanostructured polymer electrolyte (NPE), a solid electrolyte designed for use in rechargeable lithium batteries.
Argonne Chemist, Rajeev Assary's research interests include fundamental and applied aspects of computational modeling based on quantum chemistry in biomass catalysis and beyond-lithium-ion energy storage systems. He conducts research for JCESR, the Consortium for Computational Physics and Chemistry, and the UChicago/Argonne Strategic Collaborative Initiative.
A Technical Fellow at United Technologies Research Center (UTRC), Robert Darling is responsible for electrochemical technologies including batteries, fuel cells, and corrosion. Previously, as Principal Research Engineer at UTRC, he was a member of the core team that developed and licensed high-power flow battery technology and received an R&D 100 Award. He also led the automotive fuel cell development efforts for major automotive original equipment manufacturers for five years.
Argonne Physicist, Saul Lapidus' expertise is in the structural characterization and analysis of materials through powder X-ray diffraction and pair distribution function analysis.
Job Titles:
- Lead Scientist
- USTAR Professor
Shelley Minteer is a USTAR Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Utah. She conducts externally-funded research, teaching at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Job Titles:
- Argonne National Laboratory Senior Scientist
Venkat Srinivasan, an Argonne National Laboratory Senior Scientist, is the Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research. From 2013 to 2023, he served as deputy director of JCESR and helped implement the scientific mission of the energy storage innovation hub. Prior to Argonne, Srinivasan was a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab where he led multiple scientific programs focused on energy storage and the electric grid.
VijayakumarMurugesan has 15 years experience analyzing local-structure evolution and associated ion transport process in solid-phase energy storage materials using multimodal spectroscopy. He has in depth understanding of ion solvate structure and diffusion properties in both aqueous and non-aqueous electrolyte materials using multinuclear NMR analysis.
Job Titles:
- Kyocera Professor
- Lead Scientist
Yet-Ming Chiang is the Kyocera Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). For the past 28 years he has managed a multidisciplinary research team focused on energy science and technology; electrochemical energy storage; processing and physical properties of advanced materials; surfaces and interfaces in solids; and electron microscopy of materials.