Embedded Files
BEYOND LITHIUM
The Organizing Committee
The Organizing Committee
Dr. Wei Tong | Symposium Chair
Dr. Wei Tong | Symposium Chair
Chemist/Research Scientist
Berkeley Lab
Wei Tong is a Scientist/Principal Investigator in the Energy Technologies and Systems division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of electrodes and solid electrolytes for Li-ion and Li metal batteries. She has authored 60 peer-reviewed journal publications, holds 10 patents, and has contributed to 3 ROIs, 3 U.S. DRIVE Highlights Her work has also been recognized with two R&D 100 awards in 2021 and 2024.
Dr. Xueli Sherry Zheng | Program Chair
Dr. Xueli Sherry Zheng | Program Chair
Staff Scientist
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Xueli (Sherry) Zheng is a Staff Scientist at the SALC-Stanford Battery Center, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Her research advances the design, synthesis, and characterization of energy materials, drawing on extensive expertise in materials synthesis. Her group also leverages synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy and imaging, particularly in situ methods, to correlate interfaces, surfaces, and nanoscale structure/property relationships. These capabilities are applied across catalytic reactions, sodium-ion batteries, lithium/sodium-sulfur batteries, and aqueous batteries. Overall, her work couples fundamental mechanistic insight with translation to impact a broad set of energy technologies, including batteries and steelmaking.
Dr. Xia Cao
Dr. Xia Cao
Materials Scientist
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Xia Cao is a Materials Scientist and Team Lead of Applied Battery Research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Her work focuses on advanced electrolytes and electrode–electrolyte interphases for lithium batteries and other energy storage technologies, with an emphasis on improving the stability and safety of high-performance rechargeable battery systems across a wide range of operating conditions.
Kae Fink
Kae Fink
Staff Researcher
National Laboratory of the Rockies
Kae Fink is a chemist-turned-chemical engineer and staff researcher within NREL’s Materials Science Center whose research focuses on component-level characterization and process optimization for advanced battery material development. Kae's present research focuses include ML-informed battery graphite processing; battery materials recycling, including both contamination remediation and graphite recovery/upcycling; improving the viability of Si anode commercialization through multi-phase interfacial characterization and vapor-phase prelithiation; materials optimization for improved safety and performance of electrolytes for behind-the-meter storage; and developing rapid qualification methods for domestically sourced battery precursor materials. She leads several DOE consortia tasks and industry partnerships, holds two awarded patents, and has been recognized as one of the Top 40 Women Leaders in Energy Storage (Energy Storage Report, 2022) and as a Notable Woman in Energy Storage (U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge, 2021).
Dr. Max Giammona
Dr. Max Giammona
Staff Research Scientist
IBM
Dr. Max Giammona is a staff research scientists and technical lead within the Accelerated Discovery for Sustainable Materials group at IBM's Almaden Research Center where their research is focused on applications of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum computing towards accelerating the discovery of new materials for electrochemical energy storage applications (batteries). Prior to joining IBM in 2017, Dr. Giammona received their PhD in experimental physical chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Giammona has a passion for understanding structure-function relationships in new materials, specifically in the areas of energy generation, energy storage, and molecular self-assembly and for leverage multidisciplinarity and collaboration to help accelerate the scientific process.
Dr. Xiaolin Li
Dr. Xiaolin Li
Materials Scientist
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Xiaolin Li holds a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry and currently is a chief scientist and Director of Sodium-ion Alliance for Grid Energy Storage at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Li is known in the battery field for his work on the development of next generation Li-ion battery anodes and sodium-ion and aqueous zinc batteries for grid storage applications. Li is a member of Materials Research Society, the Electrochemical Society, and serves on the Battery Division Executive Committee for The Electrochemical Society.
Dr. Gao Liu
Dr. Gao Liu
Senior Scientist & Group Leader
Berkeley Lab
Dr. Gao Liu is a Senior Scientist and Group Leader of the Applied Energy Materials Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry. With over 20 years of experience, Dr. Liu specializes in materials and system engineering for electrochemical energy storage. His research, spanning synthetic chemistry, composite engineering, and electrochemistry, addresses interdisciplinary challenges in energy generation, storage, and utilization. Dr. Liu's lab employs advanced diagnostics to understand fundamental issues and utilizes synthetic techniques to develop high-performance
materials. Notably, he pioneered multifunctional conductive polymer adhesive research and has made significant contributions to understanding and designing functional electrode binders for advanced energy storage. His current research encompasses electrode binders, silicon, sulfur, lithium metal materials, electrode engineering, electrolytes, additives, and solid-state conductors. Beyond energy storage, Dr. Liu's work extends to building resiliency, circular economy, and advanced manufacturing. He has authored over 190 peer-reviewed publications and holds over 28 granted patents.
Dr. Young-hye Na
Dr. Young-hye Na
Research Manager
IBM Research
Dr. Young-Hye Na is a Principal Research Scientist and Manager of the Accelerated Materials Discovery Group at IBM Research in San Jose, California. Her research leverages artificial intelligence and foundation models to accelerate the discovery of sustainable energy storage materials. Under her leadership, the group develops domain-specific AI models for multi-scale property and performance prediction, from molecules and formulations to battery devices. Dr. Na received her PhD in Chemistry from POSTECH in South Korea and conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before joining IBM Research in 2007. An IBM Master Inventor, she holds an extensive patent portfolio and has authored numerous publications in materials science, with applications spanning semiconductors, membranes, and battery Technologies. Her contributions have been recognized with several IBM Technical Accomplishment Awards and People Manager Exemplary Awards, as well as the 2022 YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley Tribute to Women Award. She also serves on the External Advisory Board for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Dr. Pietro Papa Lopes
Dr. Pietro Papa Lopes
Electrochemist Scientist
Argonne National Laboratory
Dr. Pietro Papa Lopes is an Electrochemist Scientist at the Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory. His current research interests focus on understanding interface dynamics phenomena in electrochemical systems, employing model interfaces with controlled and well-defined properties. He is interested in various electrochemical systems, including aqueous-based energy storage, electrochemical conversion processes for water remediation and resources production, materials stability, and in situ synthesis processes and regeneration of electrochemical materials. He received the Early Career Award from the Department of Energy in 2022.
Dr. Robert Sacci
Dr. Robert Sacci
R&D Staff Electrochemist
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
As an electrochemist, I'm always interested in fluid-solid interfaces and reactions. Electrochemistry is by nature nanoscaled, and as such resolved chemical information at surfaces is difficult to separate from bulk solution. Therefore, my research has centered on developing and applying new techniques to probe reactions and structures that occur/form at interfaces in real time. That is, I seek to provide direct imaging of interfaces at the nanoscale while they are undergoing change. I am currently using in situ neutron scattering (SNS) and electron microscopy techniques to probe interfaces important to supercapacitors and batteries.
Dr. Ethan Self
Dr. Ethan Self
R&D Associate - Materials Electrochemist
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Ethan Self is a Materials Electrochemist in the Energy Storage and Conversion Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2011) and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Vanderbilt University (2016). His research focuses on material synthesis and electrochemical characterization of emerging battery technologies. A range of solution-based reaction platforms are used to synthesize earth-abundant active materials for Li-ion, solid-state, and redox flow batteries. These materials are integrated into lab-scale prototypes which are characterized using various electroanalytical tools. As an example, he’s currently developing methods to predict how a battery’s AC impedance changes as a function of DC load. When applied to experimental datasets, this approach allows one to precisely identify rate-limiting processes and guide material/component design. Broadly speaking, these undertakings aim to enable next-generation battery technologies by leveraging expertise in materials science, electrochemistry, and cell engineering.
Dr. Sanja Tepavcevic
Dr. Sanja Tepavcevic
Chemist
Argonne National Laboratory
Dr. Sanja Tepavcevic is a chemist at Argonne National Laboratory specializing in solid-state batteries and long-duration energy storage. Her work integrates fundamental interfacial science with manufacturability, focusing on interface design for lithium-metal systems and zinc-based aqueous batteries.
Dr. Bertrand Tremolet de Villers
Dr. Bertrand Tremolet de Villers
Research Scientist
National Laboratory of the Rockies
Bertrand J. Tremolet de Villers, Ph.D. is a staff researcher in the Battery Materials Group within the Materials, Chemical, and Computational Science Directorate at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) [formerly known as NREL]. He has physics and spectroscopy expertise in energy storage systems, i.e., Li-ion and Na-ion batteries, and the scale up of these technologies. He has developed in-situ spectroscopic methods to study solid-electrolyte interfaces and electrolyte solvation structure in silicon anodes and next-gen low-cobalt cathodes for rechargeable cells. He has also implemented high-throughput ultrafast laser patterning for enhanced performance of rechargeable ion battery electrodes. Other research interests include conversion of non-traditional carbon feedstocks into high- value solid carbon products including battery-grade graphite and hard carbon.
Dr. Marissa Wood
Dr. Marissa Wood
Staff Scientist & Deputy Group Leader
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Marissa Wood received her B.A. in chemistry from Boston University in 2005. She worked briefly in biotech before completing her Ph.D. in materials chemistry at the University of Washington in 2014, where her graduate research focused on investigating nanoscale mass transport phenomena using electrochemical techniques. She then joined ORNL as a postdoc, where she worked at the Battery Manufacturing Facility developing processing methods for low-cost, high-energy-density Li-ion batteries, including aqueous electrode formulations and scalable approaches for fabricating thick architected electrodes. She came to LLNL in 2018 and is currently a staff scientist in the Materials Science Division, where her research focuses on controlling electrode architectures for better performance, improving the cyclability of Li metal anodes using carbon scaffold hosts, understanding solid electrolyte/cathode interfaces in solid-state batteries, and using novel processing techniques to decrease electrode manufacturing times.
Dr. James Wu
Dr. James Wu
Senior Research Scientist
NASA
Dr. James Wu is a Sr. Research Scientist at NASA Glenn Research Center. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his master’s degree in chemistry from Rutgers University at New Brunswick, New Jersey. He possesses many years of combined postdoctoral, industrial and government R& D experiences on developing electrocatalysts, environmental catalysts, energy storage materials, batteries, and technologies. Dr. Wu is currently working on developing safe and advanced battery technologies for NASA future missions.
Page updated
Report abuse