Jeffrey Sakamoto, PhD, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan

Dee Strand, PhD, CSO, R&D, Wildcat Discovery Technologies Inc.

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.

Brian M. Barnett, PhD, President, Battery Perspectives

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

Shmuel De-Leon, CEO, Shmuel De-Leon Energy Ltd.

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

Michael L. Sanders, Senior Advisor, Energy, Avicenne

Mike has significant energy storage materials value chain understanding with an emphasis on lithium ion batteries and systems with 13 years of market knowledge and relationships. Successful program leadership experience with significant business growth in ventures and existing businesses with a proven track record leading mergers and acquisition team to enter the lithium ion battery materials market. He joined AVICENNE in May of 2016 as a Senior Advisor. Since joining the AVICENNE team, Mike has been leading the US AVICENNE activity working with many clients holding strategy workshops, validation of growth opportunities, helping clients establish their growth plans in energy storage and establishing M&A targets/diligence. Before joining AVICENNE, Mike had a very long career with DuPont, his most recent role was the Global Marketing Director – Energy Storage Venture where he developed significant understanding and insights for the energy storage materials market, device manufacturing and systems while leading global marketing and customer interface efforts to establish programs to enter the $20B energy storage materials market. Executed strategic and market planning for opportunity evaluation, research, choices and M&A activity for entry into rapidly growing new market. He has a degree in Chemistry from the University of Delaware and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers and Electrochemical Society.

George Crabtree, PhD, Director, Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), Argonne National Laboratory

George Crabtree is Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage (JCESR) at Argonne National Laboratory, and a Distinguished Professor of Physics, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering at University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC). He leads research on creating next-generation electricity storage technology beyond lithium-ion batteries. He has directed workshops for the Department of Energy on energy science and technology, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has testified before the U.S. Congress on the hydrogen economy, on meeting sustainable energy challenges, on the prospects for next generation electrical energy storage, and on accelerating energy storage on the electricity grid.

Kevin Konecky, Director, Battery Systems, Fisker, Inc.

Mr. Konecky brings over 20 years of xEV experience to his work, having worked on multiple complex designs for battery system development, charging system integration, and high-voltage powertrain integration. He is skilled in new product design and development, product testing, product safety, integration of multiple sub-systems for vehicles, new product launches and has expanded his skillset beyond batteries into power electronics. His experience in batteries includes multiple technologies (Li-ion, NiMH, UltraCapacitors, Lead-Acid). Mr. Konecky has worked for multiple OEM and Tier 1 battery suppliers (GM, Fisker, Byton, Cobasys, EnerDel, Lockheed Martin) and has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University (Potsdam, NY) and MS from Purdue (IUPUI - Indianapolis, IN).

Tal Sholklapper, CEO & Co-Founder, Voltaiq

Dr. Tal Sholklapper has an extensive record of success as a cleantech engineer and entrepreneur. Prior to founding Voltaiq, he worked as the lead engineer on a DOE ARPA-E funded project at the CUNY Energy Institute, developing an ultra low-cost grid-scale battery. Before joining CUNY, Dr. Sholklapper co-founded Point Source Power, a low cost fuel-cell startup based on technology he developed while at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley, where he also did his graduate work in Materials Science and Engineering. As a Materials Postdoctoral Fellow at LBNL, he successfully led the transfer of lab-scale technology to industry partners.

Austin Sendek, PhD, Founder/CEO, Aionics, Inc.; Visiting Scholar, Stanford University

Dr. Austin Sendek is the founder of Aionics, Inc., a provider of software and professional services for machine learning-accelerated materials design. In addition, Dr. Sendek is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Stanford University and a guest lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University. Due to his academic and entrepreneurial work, he was included on Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 in Energy list in 2019. Dr. Sendek holds a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University and a B.S. in Applied Physics from UC Davis.

Christianna N Lininger, PhD, Application Engineer, Voltaiq Inc

Dr. Christianna N. Lininger is the Associate Director of Applications Engineering at Voltaiq, the Battery Intelligence Software company that is accelerating commercial battery development in all commercial storage markets. She comes to Voltaiq after completing her Ph.D. and M.S at Columbia University and completing her postdoctoral studies at University of California, Berkeley. Her research was focused on theoretical computational chemistry and physics-based modeling for renewable energy technologies, focused primarily on the impact of mesoscale processes on the key performance metrics of Li-ion batteries. She studied the impacts of nano-sizing active material and the mesostructure of electrode composite on battery performance, phase-change materials, low cost cathode alternatives, solution responses at electrified interfaces, and machine learning algorithms to model building energy usage. Now at Voltaiq, she works closely with partners in industry developing commercial batteries as well as the Product and Analytics development efforts at Voltaiq.