Our Team
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We explore novel materials and devices for advanced energy storage, such as solid state batteries, flexible batteries, and safe liquid electrolytes. Our group studies both fundamental structure-property correlations in energy storage, and develops new materials and devices for high-performance, low-cost, safe batteries. Our studies in the battery field have also impacted other disciplines by generating unexpected results. For example, porous P(VdF-HFP), a widely used polymer for preparing gel electrolyte, produce paint that actively cools buildings by reflecting sunlight for green urban building applications.
Research areas at CEEC: Batteries for electric vehicles, grid-level storage, clean urban building
Yongbeom (Eric) Kwon is a PhD student in Chemical Engineering at Columbia University. He works on new approaches to characterize battery materials using NMR under the direction of Dr. Lauren Marbella. NMR uniquely offers dynamic molecular descriptions evolving with device operation, allowing the correlation between molecular-level phenomena and macroscopic performance metrics of batteries in practical scenarios. These insights provide the basis for material design and functional engineering of novel energy storage solutions. Eric received a BS and MS in Chemical Engineering from Brown University in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The poster will be jointly presented with Julia Carmen Hestenes (PhD) student, and Asya Svirinovsky Arbeli (Post Doc), both working in the same lab.
Xinhao Li is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in the department of chemical engineering at Columbia University. His research in Dr. Alexander Urban’s group focuses on understanding atomic-scale properties of Li-ion battery cathode materials using electronic structure theory and data-science techniques. A specific focus of his research has been the prediction of electrode surface reactivity. He is the main developer of a Python framework for the automation of surface modeling to accelerate materials discovery. Prior to joining Columbia, he graduated from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
William Stinson is a 3rd year chemical engineering PhD student in Prof. Daniel Esposito’s research group. Prior to Columbia, he obtained his Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Northeastern University as well as worked for 3+ years in industry developing Aluminum-Seawater batteries. Will’s research in the Esposito Lab focuses on local electrochemical measurements for novel photocatalytic systems, and the development of selective nanoscopic coatings.
V. Faye McNeill is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University, where she is the Chair of the Undergraduate Committee. She is also an associate member of the Earth Institute Faculty. She joined Columbia in 2007 and received tenure in 2014. She received her B.S. in Ch.E. from Caltech in 1999 and her PhD in Ch.E. from MIT in 2005, where she was a NASA Earth System Science Fellow. From 2005-2007 she was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington Department of Atmospheric Sciences. She received the NSF CAREER and the ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator awards in 2009. She was the recipient of the Kenneth T. Whitby Award of AAAR in 2015 and the Mellichamp Emerging Leaders lecturer at UCSB in 2018. She is the Associate Editor in charge of Atmospheric Chemistry for ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. She was a co-editor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics from 2007-2017. She has served in multiple elected officer positions in AIChE, AAAR, and AGU. She is an appointed member of the IUPAC panel on kinetic data evaluation and the ACS Committee on Environmental Improvement.
McNeill's research focuses on the fundamentals of multiphase processes in the atmosphere, including formation pathways of particulate matter from pollutant gases. In her role as principal investigator of the Clean Air Toolbox for Cities project she is conducting solutions-oriented field work on to improve air pollution in cities in India and Africa.
We work on microgrid and distributed system design, analysis, and implementation.
Research areas in CEEC: alleviating energy poverty
Tongwei is a second-year PhD student in the Chemical Engineering department. Her research in Dr. Alan West’s group focuses on investigating electrochemical leaching processes for copper extraction. A specific focus of her research is designing compatible reactors for the leaching process and understanding the phase transformation mechanism during leaching via various characterization methods. Tongwei received her MS in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University and BS in New Energy Materials & Devices from Soochow University, China. The poster will be jointly presented with Brian Donovan (PhD student).
Scott Banta is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University, where Banta’s research focuses on applying protein engineering, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology tools to solve a variety of important problems in bioengineering. As a CEEC Affiliated faculty, Banta has ongoing interests in developing strategies to create biochemicals from CO2 using renewable electricity (electrofuels) or from industrial process streams. He also recently started a company, Ironic Chemicals LLC, with Professor and CEEC co-Director Alan West in chemical engineering to create biofuels using copper mining waste.
Banta began teaching at Columbia Engineering in 2004. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at The Center for Engineering in Medicine at the Shriners and Massachusetts General Hospitals and Harvard Medical School. He earned a BSE in chemical engineering from the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 1997, and a MS and PhD in chemical engineering from Rutgers University in 2000 and 2002, respectively.
Saud Alghumayjan received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from King Saud University in 2018 and his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in 2022. Before joining Columbia University he worked at the Center for Complex Engineering Systems at KACST and MIT as a Research Specialist where he tackled various problems related to power systems such as Electricity Fraud Detection and Time-series Forecasting. Saud’s research interests are in the areas of machine and statistical learning, optimization, and computational modeling.
Samay is a second year Ph.D. Student in the Chen Research Group at Columbia University, where his research focuses on developing electrocatalytic processes for chemical synthesis. Prior to attending Columbia, he completed his bachelors degree at the University of California, Berkeley, where studied water electrolysis and fuel cells as a research affiliate in Dr. Adam Weber’s research group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is the recipient of an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
Rob Mohr finished his PhD in Chemical Engineering at Columbia in 2023 and recently became a fellow with Activate. Previously he worked at 2 battery startup companies working on improving affordability of battery technologies and is using that experience to scale-up and commercialize the technology explored during his PhD work.
Ningkun (Nik) Zheng received B.S. degree from Zhejiang University, Zhejiang, China in 2018; M.S. degree from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA, in 2019. Before joining Columbia, he was a research assistant at Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. His research interests include power system economics and energy storage.
We work on the integration and control of electrochemical energy storage for electrified transportation such as electric vehicles. Specific attention is paid to the development of power electronic conversion hardware that can extend the lifetime of battery packs with hundreds or thousands of cells. In addition, we develop high accuracy state-of-charge and state-of-health monitoring and prediction technologies.
Research areas in CEEC: batteries for electric vehicles
Dean Mary C. Boyce leads the education and research mission of Columbia Engineering with more than 230 faculty, 1600 undergraduate students and 2700 graduate students. A strong advocate of interdisciplinary research and the translation of innovation to impact, she has increased faculty in cross-cutting fields, and launched an inspiring vision for the school, Columbia Engineering for Humanity. She has been widely recognized for her scholarly achievements, including election as a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering. Prior to joining Columbia, Dean Boyce served on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for over 25 years, leading the Mechanical Engineering Department from 2008 to 2013.
We make new materials and develop new in situ/operando characterization tools to optimize and understand a variety of electrochemical energy devices, including Li-ion batteries, all-solid-state batteries, and aqueous batteries. We focus on using NMR/MRI to provide molecular-level insight into the amorphous/disordered phases, interfacial phenomena, and dynamic processes that arise during electrochemical cycling. Uniquely, NMR/MRI measurements can be performed as the device is operating, allowing us to correlate atomic-scale processes, such as structural transformations and ionic transport, with battery performance.
Research areas in CEEC: Batteries for electric vehicles, grid-level storage, flexible batteries, interfacial phenomena
Kedi graduated from MIT in 2020 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a B.S. in Architecture. She is currently a first-year student in the Chemical Engineering department. Her research focuses on water-in-salt electrolytes.
Dr. Carneiro received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Wayne State University in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Eranda Nikolla, where her research excellence was recognized with several awards, including the Ralph H. Kummler Award for Distinguished Achievement in Graduate Student Research. Dr. Carneiro was a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Chemical Engineering & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech with Prof. Christopher Jones.
John Bernard graduated from Northeastern University in 2019 with Bachelors degrees in Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Before Coming to Columbia, he worked for Nano-C Inc. doing application development and scale-up for nanostructured carbon materials. He is currently a 1st-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and his research is focused on the effects of binders on the transport properties within Li-ion cathodes.
We design and optimize fuel cells and electrolyzer catalysts for seasonal energy storage. Specifically, we focus on water electrolysis to produce H2, use electrons to convert CO2 and N2 to value-added chemicals, and leverage electrooxidation of H2 and other chemicals for fuel cell applications.
Research areas in CEEC: grid-level storage, fuel cells, electrolyzers, heterogeneous catalysis
Jianzhou Qu, is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Alexander Urban’s Group in Chemical Engineering. His research focuses on the atomistic modeling of electrocatalysts and battery materials with DFT. He has also been developing machine-learning force fields for simulating amorphous oxides. He is passionate about modeling and programming and has contributed to Python package development. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University, China.
As the Executive Director of the CEEC, I develop industry sponsored research projects aimed at accelerating the adoption of energy storage and conversion technologies. My research focuses on sustainable processing and recycling of critical materials.
James Hone is currently Wang Fong-Jen Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University, and director of PAS3, Columbia’s Materials Science Research and Engineering Center (MRSEC). He received his BS in physics from Yale in 1990, and PhD in experimental condensed matter physics from UC Berkeley in 1998, and did postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania and Caltech, where he was a Millikan Fellow. He joined the Columbia faculty in 2003.
Hariklia (Lili) Deligianni was for three decades at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY and played a leading role in the successful introduction of electrochemical technology in semiconductor chips. The electrochemical fabrication of solder bumps became the standard in the electronic industry for joining silicon chips to packages. She co-invented and developed the copper electrodeposition process for on-chip interconnects. The introduction of electroplated copper interconnects has revolutionized the performance of computer chips. For the patents associated with the copper interconnect process, she received the 2006 Inventor of the Year Award of the New York Intellectual Property Law Association and IBM Corporate Awards. For these technologies, the IBM team was recognized in 2004 with the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
Dr. Deligianni has a proven track record in R&D and commercialization of electronic components for the semiconductor and telecommunications industries. She and her team demonstrated the first integrated with electronics Micro-Electro-Mechanical RF switch for wireless applications. Furthermore, she has worked on integrated miniaturized power converters that will enable real-time power management of next generation 5G mobile devices.
Deligianni has also contributed significantly in renewable energy and more specifically in the development of low-cost advanced manufacturing roll-to-roll methods for thin film solar cells. She partnered with a thin film solar company and developed electrodeposited CuInGaSe2 (CIGS) which scaled-up to 60 cm x 120 cm full panel size. This technology has the potential to be used in electric cars to charge batteries and in the building sector.
Dr. Deligianni has worked on a wide range of research including a DNA sequencing electrochemical device and more recently, developed a toolbox of nanomaterials and nanodevices for brain and peripheral neural stimulation, recordings and neurochemistry
measurements. Her current research interests include biosensors, bioelectronics and artificial intelligence with applications in neural and mental health.Dr. Deligianni has co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and 230 issued patents and patent applications. Lili Deligianni received her Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and the first female recipient of the Vittorio de Nora Award of the Electrochemical Society. Furthermore, she is recognized with the E.V. Murphy award of the American Chemical Society and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
She is a senior member of IEEE and of AIChE. She is a member of ACS, AAAS and ACM and served as chair of the Watson Women’s Network. She enjoys to organize Engineer’s week outreach in K-12 schools and is a role model and a mentor to numerous students who have an interest in STEM.
Hansen Mou is a PhD Candidate and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Chemical Engineering at Columbia University in the City of New York. He graduated from Clemson University in 2019 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, and an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Columbia in 2021. Before studying at Columbia, he has been involved with other areas of clean energy research, from slurry electrodes for vanadium redox flow batteries at RWTH-Aachen University in Aachen, Germany, to characterizing anion exchange membranes for use in next-generation fuel cells and electrolyzers at the University of Delaware. He is currently studying and developing electrocatalysts for the electrochemical synthesis of alternative fuels from biomass derived molecules and water.
Gerald Singer is a materials scientist whose work is focused on high-performance lightweight materials for energy storage and structural applications. He worked in several successful industry-related research projects with the goal of improving the performance of carbon fiber-reinforced polymers for electric cars and polymer-based (nano)particle-reinforced composites of marked leading companies in Europe. After his graduation in Chemistry at Technical University Vienna, he received a PhD in materials science at University of Natural Recourses and Life Sciences Vienna. At UNSW Sydney he developed a polymer electrolyte for structural supercapacitors and currently works on structural batteries at Columbia University as Erwin-Schroedinger Fellow.
Geoffrey Heal, Donald Waite C. Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School, is noted for contributions to economic theory and environmental economics. Author of eighteen books and over two hundred articles, he is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, Past President of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, recipient of its prize for publications of enduring quality and a Life Fellow and a Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Recent books include Nature and the Marketplace, Valuing the Future, When Principles Pay and Endangered Economies: How the Neglect of Nature Threatens our Prosperity. He chaired a committee of the National Academy of Sciences on valuing ecosystem services, was a Commissioner of the Pew Oceans Commission, was a coordinating lead author of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, and co-founded and Chairs the Board of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations. He has been a principal in two start-up companies.
Drew began his PhD in chemical engineering in 2019 and works under Prof. Lauren Marbella. His research determines if long-established design principles for lithium-ion electrolytes are applicable to potassium-ion batteries. Potassium batteries have gained popularity as an affordable chemistry that relieves strain on the volatile lithium supply chain. In his research, Drew primarily focuses on characterization using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. He received B.S. degrees in chemical engineering and systems engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, and has been awarded the DoD NDSEG and NSF GRFP fellowships.
David Sandalow is the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and co-Director of the Energy and Environment Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He founded and directs the Center’s U.S.-China Program. During Fall 2018, he was a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University.
Mr. Sandalow has served in senior positions at the White House, State Department and U.S. Department of Energy. He came to Columbia from the U.S. Department of Energy, where he served as Under Secretary of Energy (acting) and Assistant Secretary for Policy & International Affairs. Prior to serving at DOE, Mr. Sandalow was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has served as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment & Science and a Senior Director on the National Security Council staff.
Mr. Sandalow writes and speaks widely on energy and climate policy. Recent works include Electric Vehicle Charging in China and the United States (February 2019, co-author), Direct Air Capture of Carbon Dioxide Roadmap (December 2018, project chair), Guide to Chinese Climate Policy (July 2018), A Natural Gas Giant Awakens (June 2018, co-author), The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy (2017, co-author), Financing Solar and Wind Power: Lessons from Oil and Gas (2017, co-author), CO2 Utilization Roadmap 2.0 (2017, project chair) and The History and Future of the Clean Energy Ministerial (2016). Other works include Plug-In Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington? (2009) (editor), U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate Change (2009) (co-author) and Freedom from Oil (2008).
Mr. Sandalow is a member of the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum (ICEF) Steering Committee and chair of ICEF Innovation Roadmap Project. He serves as a director of Fermata Energy and Highview Power Storage. Mr. Sandalow is a member of the Global CO2 Initiative Advisory Board, Zayed Future Energy Prize Selection Committee, University of Michigan Energy Institute Advisory Board, Electric Drive Transport Association’s “Hall of Fame” and Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Sandalow is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Yale College.
Daniela grew up in Quito, Ecuador and received her B.S in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and M.S from Columbia University. She is a third year Ph.D. student and her research interests are seawater/brine electrolysis, electrochemical flow cells, and electrocatalyst architecture. She is part of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Organization, cycling club, and tango club at Columbia University.
We focus on the fundamental analysis of systematic behavior and critical analysis of performance requirements in batteries.
Research areas in CEEC: batteries for EV, grid-level storage, low-cost batteries, hybrid design
We combine chemical engineering principles with advanced in situ analytical tools to develop (photo)electrocatalytic materials and devices that use solar energy to convert low energy reactants into chemicals and fuels. Our efforts focus on developing design principles for unconventional electrocatalyst and device architectures that are capable of inherently stable operation and electrocatalytic functionalities not present in today’s commercial electrochemical technologies.
Research areas at CEEC: Grid-level storage, solar fuels
Cem works on the kinetic modeling of phase transitions at cathode surfaces and cathode/coating/electrolyte interfaces in Li-ion batteries, bridging from the atomic scale to the continuum scale.
Bruce Usher is a Professor of Professional Practice and the Elizabeth B. Strickler '86 and Mark T. Gallogly '86 Faculty Director of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School. Professor Usher teaches on the intersection of finance, social and environmental issues, and is a recipient of the Singhvi Prize for Scholarship in the Classroom, the Lear Award, and the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence. Prior to his work at Columbia, Professor Usher was CEO of EcoSecurities Group plc, which developed greenhouse gas emission reduction projects in developing countries. EcoSecurities was acquired by JP Morgan in 2009. Professor Usher was previously the co-founder and CEO of TreasuryConnect LLC, which provided electronic trading solutions to banks and was acquired in 2001. Prior to that, he worked in financial services for twelve years in New York and Tokyo. Professor Usher is an active investor and advisor to entrepreneurial ventures focused on climate change and clean energy (UsherWorks.com). He is a board member of Community Energy, OptiRTC, and CapShift, and is Chair of the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures. Usher earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Bret is a fourth year PhD student in the Earth and Environmental Engineering department co-advised by Dr. Lauren Marbella and Dr. Dan Steingart. His research focuses on evaluating the safety limits in energy storage systems using low cost, accessible calorimetric techniques. Before pursuing his PhD, Bret received a B.S. in Chemistry from NYU and was the CTO of a battery quality control startup.
We develop business models for energy storage in electricity markets and power systems, from aggregating electric vehicles to provide stacked services, to designing non-wire alternatives that enhance grid resiliency with the least cost and environmental impact. Our solution pays attention to batteries' unique degradation characteristics, and is aware of ownership boundaries, communication limits, and computation costs. In addition, our work provides foresights for future market needs and directs investments and research for promising energy storage technologies.
Many of the limitations in prospective energy storage technologies are caused by phenomena that occur at materials interfaces. For example in ceramic solid-state batteries (a promising battery technology for electric vehicles) the anode/electrolyte interface is chemically unstable which leads to rapid deterioration. The lifetime of reversible solid oxide fuel and electrolyzer cells for grid-level storage is limited by similar degradation at the electrode/electrolyte interfaces. We employ simulations to better understand how such processes take place on the atomic scale. Using atomistic modeling, we can obtain an understanding of transport mechanisms, phase diagrams, and chemical reactions that affect macroscopic materials and device properties such as the rate capability, voltage, thermal stability, and degradation pathways. Computationally generated insights may then guide the design of improved materials or processing strategies in collaboration with our experimental colleagues at CEEC.
Research areas at CEEC: batteries for EV, grid-level storage, recycling of battery materials
We focus on analysis, characterization and design of electrochemical materials, architectures and systems for storage and conversion applications. Transport, phase-change, and reaction mechanisms are investigated through experiment and numerical simulations. Through close coupling with experiment, predictive, physics-based models, augmented by data-science algorithms, are developed and used as a tool for the creation of technologies satisfying applications ranging from automotive to grid-scale storage.
Research areas in CEEC: Batteries for electric vehicles, grid-level storage
Abdul Fayeed Abdul Kadir graduated from University of Delaware in 2022 with a bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering and minors in Business Administration, Chemistry, and Economics. He is a 2nd-year PhD student in the Department of Chemical Engineering, where he builds physics-based models to study electrochemical energy storage systems. Specifically, his work focuses on the study of aluminum chloride batteries using Concentrated Solution Theory.
Aamani is a second year PhD student in the Chemical Engineering department working under Dan Steingart. Her research focuses on studying the failure mechanisms of high energy density, low cost Si anodes, with a particular focus on utilizing ultrasound acoustic transmission to gain operando insight into mechanical phenomena. Prior to Columbia, Aamani graduated from the University of Southern California in 2022 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.