Speaker Biographies by Organization

Executive Director of Low Voltage Product Management
Ian Braime is responsible for A123’s global Low Voltage product strategy, prior to this he headed A123’s European business development activities. His focus in his current role is on technical & commercial strategies to extend A123’s leadership in 48V & 12V battery solutions. Prior to joining A123 in 2012, he spent 20 years in several commercial business development positions within global tier 1’s powertrain & chassis system suppliers. He started his career completing a 4 year technical apprenticeship in parallel to gaining qualifications HND in Mechanical Engineering at Loughborough College & Diploma in Business Management at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.

Vice President, Product Development
Dr. Brian Sisk is Vice President of Cell Product Development at A123 Systems. Brian oversees global lithium-ion cell design for low-voltage and high-voltage vehicle applications. During his time at A123, Brian’s team has launched cells for global automakers, including EV, PHEV, 48V MHEV, and starter batteries. Brian also leads research into the relationship between vehicle applications, regulatory requirements, and their impact on battery design. Brian received his PhD in Chemistry from California Institute of Technology, focusing on thin-film chemical vapor detection systems. Prior to joining A123, Brian was Director of Design Analysis at Johnson Controls Power Solutions.

Director of Business Development
Dr. Wang got his PhD degree at Max-Planck-Institute. As co-inventor of 38 US & China patents in materials development, designing and processing for electronic components, he worked as R&D Manager for 15 years. Since 2016, Dr. Wang’s work function has been changed from the R&D to Director of Business Development.

CEO and Managing Director
No bio available

Director, Joint Center for Energy Storage Research
George Crabtree is Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) at Argonne National Laboratory and Professor of Physics, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering at University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC). His research interests include next-generation battery technology and integrating energy science, technology, policy and societal decision-making. He has led several 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, and on the prospects for next-generation electrical energy storage.

Materials Scientist, Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division
Tim Fister is a materials scientist in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering division at Argonne National Laboratory. For over a decade he has used synchrotron x-ray methods to study the electrochemical response of batteries, fuel cells, and electrocatalysts during operation.

Director, Planning & Strategy
Guido M Donà joined Elf Atochem (now Arkema Group) in 1992. Since then he has covered a number of Business Development and Management positions in Italy, France and the US. Guido worked for more than 15 years in the Adsorbents field and then in 2012 he joined Arkema’s Specialty Polyamides Business Unit at the headoffice in France as General Manager, Powders & Specialties. In 2017 Guido was appointed Director, Planning & Strategy for the Technical Polymers BU, and as such he is in charge of the Sutainability initiatives and activities of the BU.  Guido holds a Master degree in Chemical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.

Senior Advisor
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. 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. He has a degree in Chemistry from the University of Delaware and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers and Electrochemical Society.

Battery Survey Manager
Christophe has built up considerable expertise in the area of battery market. He joined AVICENNE 22 years ago and spent 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 200 customers worldwide. Christophe published several annual surveys like “The rechargeable battery market 2016-2025”. He is also the founder & chairman of Batteries congress in France since 1999. He is now Director of AVICENNE ENERGY.

Project Manager IODP, IODP Architecture & Technology
Dr. Veronika Obersteiner has studied Technical Physics at the Graz University of Technology, Austria with specialization on quantum-mechanical simulation in the field of organic electronics. After her doctoral studies she joined the structural and thermal simulation group at AVL List GmbH in Graz, where she focused on battery safety and lifetime simulation. In her current role, she is responsible for connected toolchains to unify testing, simulation and data management along the whole vehicle development process.

Senior Product Manager, Global Battery Competence Team
Wenzel Prochazka studied Mechanical Engineering for Mechatronics at the University of Graz in Austria and the Institute of Applied Sciences in Rouen, France. During his PhD thesis at the University of Graz (2009 - 2013), he investigated ageing mechanisms of Lithium ion cells for PHEVs and EVs by means of experimental designs and electrochemical ageing modelling. Since 2004, he has been involved in modelling of energy systems at different enterprises and research centers (e.g. VA Tech Austria, ONERA France) and vehicle thermal management at AVL. In 2010 he joined AVL List’s Global Battery Competence Team as a junior expert for ageing of battery systems. In 2013 he switched to his current position as Product Manager for battery systems.

Senior Vice President, RCN New Technologies
Hartmann Leube, a native of Ludwigshafen, Germany, studied chemistry at the University of Freiburg and earned a PhD in Polymer Chemistry 1991. Until 1992, he worked on materials for non-linear optics at Hoechst-Celanese in Summit/NJ, USA. 1992, he joined BASF starting out in the central Polymer Research Laboratory. In the following years he held various positions in research, plant operations, marketing and business management. The course of these assignments brought him in contact with a manifold of operational, strategic and innovation related topics e.g. in the Paper, Coatings, Automotive, Fuels and Lubes, Food and Chemical industry. Since 2016, Hartmann Leube heads the BASF research department for Battery Materials and Inorganics.

CTO
Michael Schönleber studied electrical engineering at the KIT, Germany, where he focused on electrochemistry and system theory. At the end of his studies, he developed state and parameter estimation algorithms for Battery Management Systems at the Research & Technology Center of Robert Bosch LLC in Palo Alto, USA. Afterwards he returned to KIT and obtained his PhD, focusing on low-frequency impedance characterization of Lithium-Ion cells. In 2017 he co-founded the Batemo GmbH, which is specialized on creating physical, customer and cell specific, validated battery models. Dr. Schönleber was awarded with the Siemens Energy Award for being the best student of electrical engineering at KIT of his year and with the Freudenberg Award for the best PhD thesis at KIT in 2017. He is co-inventor of two patents in the field of battery state estimation.

President
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.

President
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.

CEO
Dr. Martin Ebner is CEO and President of Battrion AG in Switzerland. He holds BS and MS degrees from ETH Zurich in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, respectively. He received his PhD in the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics under the supervision of Prof. Vanessa Wood at ETH.

Head, Forecasting & Consultancy
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.

Analyst, Cobalt & Cathodes
Caspar Rawles joined Benchmark in 2016 to cover cobalt and cathodes for the energy storage industry and has launched the company’s battery focused cobalt sulphate price estimate. Caspar begun his career working as an exploration geologist in West Africa primarily for Rio Tinto and subsequently moving on to the world of finance where he worked as a commodities broker in London gaining a deep understand of commodity markets from an economic standpoint.

Senior Vice President, Director, BlueSolutions®
Didier Marginedes is graduated from « Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité » in 1978, he has a Master of Sciences from Berkeley University (USA) obtained in 1979 and an Executive MBA from INSEAD (1989). After a first experience within Aerospatiale, he joined Schlumberger (81-86) to lead the development of signal processing for logging tools. He then worked for Air Liquide (86-95) where he was in charge of the development of energy-related businesses and of strategic marketing. In 1995, he joined Bolloré as R&D Director where he managed the development strategy including competitive analysis and new products development. In 2001, Didier Marginedes added the function of General Manager of a new subsidiary of Bolloré group: Batscap whose objectives were the development and sales of energy storage products such as batteries and supercapacitors. These products were mainly dedicated to clean energy transportation markets such as Electric Vehicle (Bluecar), electric bus (Bluebus), hybrid vehicles and clean tram system with energy recovery. He has been in charge of Autolib technical developments and of the developments of solutions of Energy Storage optimization. He is currently vice chairman of BlueSolutions (listed company subsidiary of Bolloré Group) which gathers all the companies providing services in energy storage optimization in mobility and stationary markets.

Technical Director
Anne is a chartered metallurgical engineer from the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London. She has over 25 years’ experience in the oil, gas and minerals industries. She began her career working for various large engineering companies as a metallurgist and later a project engineer in The Netherland and France. Anne is also a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum in London. Since 2003 she has been the driving force behind the development of nickel laterite heap leaching firstly with European Nickel at the Çaldağ project in Turkey and further projects in the Philippines. In November 2010 Anne left EN to co-found Alyssum Ventures Ltd (AVL) to further develop and commercialise nickel laterite heap leaching technology. Brazilian Nickel Ltd (BRN) was founded in May 2013, to specifically advance Brazilian nickel laterite heap leach projects including its flagship project the Piauí Nickel Project in NE Brazil. Anne is Technical Director of BRN and is an executive member of the AVL & BRN boards.

Chief Battery Scientist
Dr. Anaba Anani VP Battery Research & Development Anaba has distinguished himself in the storage/conversion energy industry in academia and private industry. He is recipient of Motorola’s Distinguished Innovation Award, Distinguished Achievement Award for Young Black Engineers, and ECS Young Author Award Nominations. He has also served as a Motorola SABA member and chaired the US Fuel Cell Council Portable Power Group. Anaba earned his Masters and Doctorate degrees in Materials Science & Engineering with a minor in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He has authored or co-authored over 30 refereed articles in peer reviewed journals and is inventor or co-inventor of over 35 utility patents and 4 trade secrets.

Battery Expert
Dr. Mikaël Cugnet received his Master and PhD degrees in Control Engineering from the University of Bordeaux in France, in 2004 and 2008 respectively. His PhD entitled “Ageing integration to the management of an automotive lead-acid battery” was funded by PSA Peugeot Citroën under the guidance of Prof. Jean-Marie Tarascon. From 2008 to 2010, he was a post-doc in the team of Dr. Bor Yann Liaw, at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, to work on characterizing and modeling Li-ion and Lead-acid batteries. Since 2010, Mikaël is a battery expert at CEA, the French Atomic and Alternative Energy Commission, managing many academic and industrial projects on different technologies (Pb-acid, Ni-MH, Li-ion, Na-ion, and Na-MCl2) mostly focused on battery modeling and diagnostic for transport applications. Mikaël has been the thesis advisor of 3 MSc and 5 PhD students. He has lectured on electrochemical storage at Ecole des Mines de Paris since 2010. He has been a member of the Electrochemical Society since 2008 and has attended 34 international conferences in the battery field. He currently holds 4 book chapters, 6 patents, and 18 articles. He also acts as an expert for the European Commission.

Professor, Institute for Technical Chemistry and Environmental Chemistry
Andrea Balducci is Professor for “Applied Electrochemistry” at the Institute for Technical Chemistry and Environmental Chemistry and at the Center for Energy and Environmental Chemistry Jena (CEEC Jena) of the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Germany. He is working on the development and characterization of novel electrolytes and active/inactive materials suitable for the realization of safe and high performance supercapacitors, metal-ion batteries and polymeric batteries. Prof. Balducci is authors/co-author of more than 120 peer reviewed articles.

Formerly Senior Technical Leader, Electrochemistry
No bio available

Vice President, Engineering & Product Development EMEA
Dr. Christian Rosenkranz is responsible for the global start-stop product line development and the European engineering center of Johnson Controls Power Solutions now Clarios. Prior to this role, Christian was responsible for the global research network as Vice President Advanced Materials and Products. During his 20 years of industry career Christian had several global assignments in the functions of research and development, business development and general management for the Li-Ion system integration center in Hannover. Dr Rosenkranz holds a PhD in Electrochemistry and has studied in Hannover and London.

Vice President Start-Stop Engineering & EMEA
No bio available

President
David graduated as an Applied Scientist some years ago now, and has been involved with the metal mining industry for thirty-nine years, having spent twenty years with the Zambian Mining Industry providing technical and commercial services to one of the world’s largest refined copper and cobalt producers. For a significant portion of this time he was the Chief Executive of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (UK) Ltd before the industry was eventually privatised. David then worked with Mitsui & Co Ltd and provided consulting services in financial risk management and metals trading before working with Anglo American Corporation of South Africa specialising in the integration of base metal assets. He then moved into the Lloyd’s Insurance market and spent a number of years with Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ltd, the largest European based insurance broker, to specialise in managing all aspects of mining risks. David is now President of the Cobalt Institute, Director of the Cobalt REACH Consortium Ltd, REACH Metal Carboxylates Consortium and the Non-Ferrous Alliance. The Cobalt Institute represents a large part of the global cobalt industry and works to promote the sustainable and responsible production and use of this very special, technology enabling metal.

No bio available

Commodity Analyst, Lead
Neil has been responsible for CRU’s lead market analysis for nearly 30 years and is the main author of the company’s regular reports on this metal and is a regular speaker at conferences. First founded in 1969, CRU specialises in commodities, delivering global business intelligence across a wide variety of non-ferrous and ferrous metals through analysis, prices, consulting and conferencing.

CEO
Managing director, founder and one of the visionaries of CUSTOMCELLS®. As early as 2011, Leopold positioned himself for electromobility by moving to the development department for lithium polymer cells at Fraunhofer ISIT and founding CUSTOMCELLS® Itzehoe GmbH the following year. Leopold is a specialist for application analyses and production technologies related to battery cells. Before that, he gained several years of international professional experience in the context of corporate controlling, the digitalization of factories, the construction and new construction of a pharmaceutical production facility in China and the technical support of large-scale real estate projects. The diversity of the individual projects has led to an extensive cross-industry network. He studied industrial engineering at Stralsund University, specialising in mechanical engineering and business management. Previously, Leopold König worked for several years as a paramedic in emergency situations and learned at an early age how to act proactively and lead teams under difficult conditions.

Head, Battery Research
Andreas Hintennach is a chemist and medical doctor. He received his PhD in electrochemistry from the ETH Zurich and Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) in 2010. After a postdoc stay at MIT in the field of lithium-air and catalysis 2010-11 he joined the research department of Daimler AG where he serves as a senior manager. His present focus in the field of electrochemistry is fundamental research on next generation electrical energy storage and conversion materials and systems, sustainability and toxicology.

Researcher, Battery and Conductive Materials, Special Conductive Materials
Akira Yoda received his Master degree in Applied Science for Electronics and Materials from the Kyushu University in 2009 after which he worked as a researcher at Denka. He became a visiting scholar at University of California San Diego (UCSD) from 2015 to 2017. He is currently working at Denka.

Technical Service & Development Scientist, Dow Performance Silicones
Julien is an application engineer at Dow Performance Silicones. Since 2006, he worked on several automotive developments in the areas of silicone rubbers, adhesives or the applications of plastics in vehicle electrification. Julien studied at Strasbourg where he obtained a MS in polymer chemistry and a PhD in mechanical engineering.

No bio available

CEO
Dr Ralf Wagner studied chemistry (BSc) at the RWTH Aachen University and business chemistry (MSc) at the University of Muenster. He graduated with a PhD in the field of electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries in the working group of Prof. Martin Winter at the MEET Battery Research Center of the University of Muenster. Since 2018, Dr Ralf Wagner works for Custom Cells Itzehoe GmbH as technical sales manager and project planner. Since May 2019, Dr. Ralf Wagner co-founder and CEO of the start-up company E-Lyte Innovations that focuses on the development and production of tailor-made electrolytes. He has overall 8 years of experience in the field of lithium-ion batteries and is author/co-author of 36 scientific publications and inventor of 7 patent applications.

Director, Automotive Battery Application Engineering
Bernd Engwicht held various positions in European and American Battery Companies since 1989 including Vice President of Product Engineering and Global Product Engineering with main responsibility to roll out Lead Acid Start Stop technology globally, in 2015 he joint East Penn Manufacturing in Pennsylvania in the position of Director Automotive Application Engineering covering Advanced Products for OEM customers as well as Product Engineering in active collaboration with various external partners and customers.He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Hannover University.

No bio available

Founder & CTO
Dr. Park leads Enevate’s R&D efforts. He is an expert in battery and surface/bulk chemistries, and novel battery manufacturing techniques. Ben has authored 45+ talks/publications, and has 100+ patents issued/filed. He holds a doctorate in mechanical&aerospace engineering from UC Irvine, MSEE from Purdue University, BSEE from Seoul National University.

CTO
No bio available

Founder and Executive Director
Dr. Lamm studied mechanical and chemical engineering at the Rhine-Westphalia Technical University (RWTH), Aachen. He obtained his PhD from the Jülich GmbH research center, and joined Daimler AG in1995. Since then he has worked in different positions as senior manager for “Fuel Cell Stack and System Technology”, “Energy Storages” (Hydrogen tank, High-Voltage-Batteries) and “Fuel Cell Drivetrain”. In April 2009 Dr. Lamm became member of the board of German ACCUmotive at Nabern, and has been responsible for the development of Li-Ion batteries (Hybrid, EV, Plug-in). In December 2010 Dr. Lamm took over a new department at Daimler AG: “Characterization of HV Battery Systems“. He is member of the AG2 in the National Platform Electro Mobility in Germany.

President and CEO
Marco Antonio Romero is an entrepreneur and businessperson who founded Eldorado Gold Corp., Polaris Materials Corp., Euro Manganese, Inc. and Delta Gold Corp. and who has been the head of 5 different companies. Mr. Romero is President, Chief Executive Officer & Director at Euro Manganese, Inc. and Co-Managing Director at MANGAN Chvaletice sro (a subsidiary of Euro Manganese, Inc.). Mr. Romero previously was Senior Vice President-Corporate Development at Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., Director at Polaris Materials Corp., President & Chief Executive Officer for Delta Gold, Inc., President, Chief Executive Officer & Director at Delta Gold Corp., Senior Vice President-Corporate Development of Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. and Executive Director at Eldorado Gold Corp.

Scientific Project Officer, Joint Research Center
Natalia Lebedeva obtained her PhD in physical chemistry and electrocatalysis from Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands) in 2002. From 2002 to 2011 she was a (senior) scientist at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) leading projects on development of proton-exchange fuel cells for automotive applications. From 2011 to 2013 she worked as a project manager at the Maritime Materials Performance Centre of TNO, leading research on corrosion and corrosion protection in extreme environments. In 2013 she joined the battery energy storage testing for safe electrification of transport (BESTEST) team at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Petten.

Scientific Officer, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Energy
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Andreas Pfrang received a doctor's degree in physics at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2004. After providing microscopy services as team leader at Freudenberg Forschungsdienste in Weinheim, Germany, in 2007 he joined the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Petten, Netherlands. There he performed fuel cell related research and was responsible for the microscopy services of the site until end of 2012. Since January 2013 he has contributed to a project on battery testing at the Joint Research Centre.

No bio available

Market Analyst
Viktor Irle is co-founder, consultant, and market analyst at EV-volumes.com, a global market intelligence platform for the electric vehicle industry that delivers consultancy services in the EV industry. EV-volumes.com’s key strengths are in global vehicle sales and data for xEV vehicles, battery technology, charging infrastructure, future vehicles, governmental policies and targets, and forecasts. Prior to starting EV-volumes.com, Viktor Irle worked with consultancy services in the automotive industry. He is convinced electric vehicles play an important role in shaping the future of the automotive industry. Viktor Irle has a Master’s degree in Management and Economics of Innovation, from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, and a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.

President
School education in print and graphic art Stuttgart, University Halle (Germany) Industrial Design. Since 1992 leader of the ExtraEnergy project, since 1996 President of theExtraEnergy organization. Since 2001 work as freelance consultant in the LEV area. Since 2003 external project manager for battery selection at Deutsche Post AG/DHL Express for LEV application.

Chemist and Energy Scientist
Managing R&D for advanced Li-ion battery technology: High-energy cells, safer batteries, Li-ion manufacturing and recycling process development.

Head of Base Metals and Battery Research
William has been involved in the metals markets since 1986, he runs the research for Fastmarkets battery metals and oversees base and precious metals research. Fastmarkets as a Price Reporting Agency (PRA) provides price discovery on the battery raw materials and Fastmarkets Research aims to provide a clear and focused understanding of the metals markets. Prior to working for Fastmarkets, William worked with Rudolf Wolff & Co Ltd, which was one of the founding members of the London Metal Exchange, where he gained broad insight into all aspects of the metals markets, working in their London, New York and Tokyo offices.

Energy Storage Systems, Advanced Electrification and Technology
Oliver is a Walter P. Chrysler Technical Fellow, for Energy Storage Systems, at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, where he is responsible for the Battery systems technology roadmap and architecture for FCA. He is a member of the United States Advanced Battery Consortium Technical Advisory Committee, and chairs the committees on 12V Stop Start and 48V Mild Hybrid batteries. He is also Chairman for the Society for Automotive Engineers’ Work Group on Capacitive Energy Storage Systems. He holds both a BS and a Master’s Degree in Materials Science, for the University of Toronto. Oliver has 20 years’ experience in the advanced energy storage industry. Prior to Chrysler Oliver was at Cobasys, where he was responsible for all Nickel Metal-Hydride cell and module development, as well as the development of their lithium-ion battery portfolio. Before Cobasys, Oliver was at Valence Technology, where he was responsible for lithium-ion cell design and development, which included extended-term deployments to Northern Ireland, South Korea, and China. Before Valence, Oliver was at Ultralife, developing lithium primary and secondary cells for extreme environment applications. He currently holds over 10 patents, and more than 20 publications.

CEO
Education: PhD – Theoretical Electrochemisty, 1970 Habilitation – Applied Electrochemistry, 1980 Academia: Lecturer - Dresden University of Technology, Professsor Electrochemistry - Ulm University, Visiting professor Electrochemistry at Shandong University, Dalian Institute for Chemical Physics (China) and Sapienca University Roma Since 2015 - Senior Professor – Ulm University1970 – 1990, Senior researcher, University lecturer at TU Dresden, 1991 – 2004, Head of the Electrochemical Energy Storage and Energy Conversion Division of the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, Ulm, 2004 – now, CEO of FCBAT Ulm.

Senior Technology Fellow
Dr. Hashish joined Flow Research Inc., now Flow International Corporation in Kent, Washington, USA, as a research scientist, in early 1979. Although Flow was involved in waterjet cutting, mainly for mining and limited factory applications, it wasn't until Dr. Hashish invented a new technique to add abrasives to the waterjet that the strongest cutting tool in the world was realized.[2] This new technology revolutionized the waterjet technology and spread its use in over 50 industries worldwide. Dr. Hashish supplemented his initial invention with over 40 patents to date to further improve and enhance the performance of waterjet cutting systems. Due to his outstanding work in the field and consistent advancements to the abrasive waterjet technology, the University of Washington department of Mechanical Engineering honored him with the appointment as an affiliate professor of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Hashish is also honored with the first technology award from the Water Jet Technology Association WJTA, the pioneer award, and the service award from the same association.

Technical Expert for Battery & Energy Storage Technology
Dr. Karden is Technical Expert for Battery & Energy Storage Technology at Ford's Corporate Research and Advanced Engineering Centre in Aachen, Germany. Since he joined Ford, he was responsible for numerous projects in the fields of powertrain electrification, battery modeling and monitoring, and storage technology assessment, with a main focus on micro-hybridization in 14V systems.

Dangerous Goods Safety Advisor
No bio available

No bio available

Head, Purchasing and Logistics
Stefan Elsner joined the team at GRS Batterien in October 2015. He has an academic background in busi-ness studies and is now responsible for purchasing, logistics and operational handling. Stefan Elsner most recently served as head of purchasing for ZENTEK in Cologne. He has many years’ experience in the systems business and will be a valuable addition to our team thanks to his outstanding skills in service network management. We look forward to working with Mr Elsner and wish him every success!

Head of Department Chemical Surface and Battery Technology
Holger Althues studied chemical engineering and received his doctoral degree in inorganic chemistry at the University of Technology Dresden in 2007. Since then he is working at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology in Dresden, Germany. 2008 he became a team manager for the chemical surface technology group and his team was transferred into a division with 3 sub-groups in 2015. In his position as division manager he administrates various projects in the area of film deposition techniques, electrode processing and energy storage applications.

Expert Group Manager, Lead-Acid Technology, Fraunhofer R&D Center Electromobility
Jochen Settelein received his Master of Science in nanostructure technology in 2012, focusing on surface and semiconductor physics. From 2013 on, he was PhD student at the University of Würzburg in cooperation with the Fraunhofer ISC. He was working on the topic “Additives in lead-acid batteries and their influence on the physical and electrochemical properties of the active material”. Since 2016 he is group manager for lead-acid battery technology at the Fraunhofer R&D Center Electromobility FZEB. Besides advanced battery testing and analytics, his group focusses on fundamental and applied studies about the mechanism and effects of the battery active material.

Deputy Head, Competence Center for Emerging Technologies
Dr. Axel Thielmann is Deputy Head of the Competence Center "Emerging Technologies" and Head of the Business Unit “Industrial Technologies” at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (Fraunhofer ISI). His research areas focus on scientific, technological developments in emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, advanced materials, production technologies with focus on energy technologies. He performs analyses on their technical, market potentials, socio-economic and environmental impacts and dynamics, regulatory frame conditions and implications for strategic planning and technology policy. He represents the Fraunhofer ISI in the Fraunhofer Battery Alliance, he is Member of the Working Group on Batteries in the National Platform Electric Mobility (NPE), and permanent guest in the advisory board of the “Batterieforum Deutschland”. Since 2010 Dr. Thielmann is coordinating and conducting a Roadmapping and Monitoring process on Lithium-Ion Batteries for electric mobility and stationary energy storage on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Research Engineer, R&D
No bio available

Professor, Helmholtz Institute Münster
Prof Figgemeier studied chemistry and did his PhD at the University of Paderborn. This was followed by academic research at the Universities of Dublin, Basel and Uppsala. In 2007 he joined Bayer Technology Services heading the materials and corrosion lab as well as the development of materials for battery applications. From 2012 on, he worked as application development engineer for battery materials at 3M Deutschland responsible for technical support of customers in Germany and Europe. Since 2016 he is group leader at the Helmholtz Institute Münster (section Aachen) and he holds the chair for “Ageing and Reliability of Batteries” at the RWTH Aachen University.

Director, Helmholtz Institute Ulm
Maximilian Fichtner is director at the Helmholtz-Institute Ulm (HIU) and full professor for Solid State Chemistry at the Ulm University. He is scientific director of CELEST (Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage Ulm-Karlsruhe) and spokesperson of the German Excellence Cluster on battery research POLiS (“Energy Storage Beyond Lithium“). His work focuses on the exploration of novel methods for electrochemical energy storage and the development of the necessary materials.

PhD Student
Geologist engineer with an international master’s degree in Georesources Engineering. PhD student at Helmholtz Institute of Freiberg working on recycling fine particles of spent lithium ion batteries.

No bio available

Director, Research
Dr. Bernhard Riegel was awarded his doctor degree by the University of Stuttgart in 1994. From 1995 to 1997, within his postgraduate time, he participated in different work groups at the University of Texas under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Alan Cowley and Prof. Dr. H.-G. v. Schnering. In 1998, he joined the ZSW as a scientific assistant, working on several projects including ultrasonic corrosion measuring methods for lead-acid batteries. In 2001 he joined the HOPPECKE group and after heading various R&D activities within the company, took over the management of the R&D Department in 2003. Since 2008 Dr. Riegel is additionally responsible for the structure of HOPPECKE Advanced Battery Technology GmbH for the use of nickel metal hydride and lithium ions technology in the industrial market as a general manager. He is author of several publications in magazines, conferences and seminars. Chairman of IRES Conference 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 (International Renewable Energy Systems), Chairman of LABAT 2011 and 2017. Member of the advisory board “Batterieforschung Deuschland”(Battery development Germany).

No bio available

No bio available

Research Associate, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Materials
Ola Hekselman is a Research Associate in the Department of Materials. Her primary research interests are in solid-state chemistry and electrochemistry, with a focus on new materials and technologies for energy applications. Ola's research concentrates on low-temperature chemical and electrochemical routes for lead recycling from lead-acid batteries. Ola's interests extend to material discovery for solid-state Li-ion batteries. This ranges from polymer, ceramic and hybrid electrolyte systems to organic electrodes. Ola combines her expertise in inorganic and organic synthesis with characterisation methods to tailor electrochemical, chemical and mechanical properties of the next-generation battery materials. Before joining Dr. David Payne's group and the RELAB project in December 2017, Ola was a Research Associate working with Dr. Ainara Aguadero. Between 2014 and 2016, she was a Research Fellow in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford, where she held an Academic Visitor position until 2017. Ola obtained her PhD in 2014 under the supervision of Prof. Peter G. Bruce at the University of St Andrews.

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Having trained as a physicist before moving to engineering, Yatish is interested in developing engineering solutions centered around scientific understanding of lithium ion batteries. His reserch 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.

No bio available

Certified Senior Industrial Analyst, Industry, Science and Technology International Strategy Center (ISTI)
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.

Dipl.-Ing., Market Manager, Automotive Leak Detection, Marketing
Sandra Seitz is the Market Manager Automotive Leak Detection for INFICON. She joined INFICON in 2003 as product manager followed by leading a business development project for INFICON. Previously she had served as a product manager for 3D Systems. She holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering / Materials Science.

Vice President
Vincent Ledoux-Pedailles is Vice-President - European Corporate Strategy And Business Development at Infinity Lithium Corporation. Infinity Lithium is developing lithium production in Europe to power a renewable future. He previously worked at IHS Markit where he led the lithium and battery materials research team. The team covers the entire industry’s supply chain from the extraction of the raw materials to their conversion to chemicals and battery materials used in cathodes, all the way to their end uses such as electric vehicles, energy storage systems, portable electronics and others. He joined IHS Markit in 2014 where he first focused on basic chemical commodities and led the EMEA Chlor-alkali team. Earlier in his career, he worked for Talison Lithium located in Perth, Australia, tracking the lithium industry in China and Europe. He also worked for Roskill, an international metals and minerals research and consulting company, where he monitored various metals and industrial minerals markets. Mr Ledoux-Pedailles is a regular speaker at various industry events across the world presenting at chemical, mining, and energy related conferences. Mr. Ledoux-Pedailles holds a Business Masters in Risk Management and International Purchasing from ESDES Business School in France. He wrote his master's thesis on the development and deployment of electric vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries. He has also studied at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and Marshall University, US.

CTO, Research & Development
Alexandre Collet studied engineering and completed his Masters in Power Electronics and Embedded Systems from University of Grenoble, France where he also researched ground-breaking inventions in power electronics architecture, Lithium-Ion cell ageing factors and state identification. He then founded Freemens SAS, an industry leader in battery management systems which was acquired by ION Energy in 2018. Alexandre Collet is now the Chief Technology Officer of ION Energy, spearheading all new product development and leading the team in building the world’s most advanced battery management and intelligence platform.

Founder
Dr. Mike Zimmerman is the Founder and CEO of Ionic Materials, a materials Technology Company that has developed a solid polymer electrolyte with a new conduction mechanism for solid state batteries. Prior to Ionic Materials, Mike founded Quantum Leap Packaging (QLP) which invented, then developed a new liquid crystal polymer technology used for high frequency semiconductor packaging, and films for the emerging 5G antennae and radar systems. QLP was acquired by a multinational manufacturer, Interplex Industries. Prior to this Mike worked at Bell Laboratories where his role was to develop new materials process for semiconductor packaging and materials for the original key technologies for fiber to the home. For his technical contributions he rose to the level of "Consulting Member of Technical Staff" which is reserved for the top 1% of the technical community. Mike has been a Professor at Tufts University for more than 25 years, teaching materials science, and providing students opportunity for thesis/research work at his companies.

Product Innovation Manager, Battery Materials
Eva-Maria Hammer, Johnson Matthey Chemical Products - After graduating in chemistry from the University of Bonn, Eva-Maria completed her PhD in solid state chemistry at the University of Bonn. Eva-Maria started her industrial career at Ceres Power in 2015 after four years in fundamental research working on the material and process development for various energy storage applications. In her time at Ceres Power she worked on the development of functional layers in SOFC’s with a strong focus on process optimization. With a strong interest in green energy materials, Eva-Maria has progressed her career to become a senior member of the JM Battery Materials team, playing a key role in the product development of JM’s suite of next generation Li-ion battery cathode materials eLNO®.

No bio available

Professor, Director, Center of Materials Research
Jürgen Janek holds a chair for Physical Chemistry at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen (Germany) and is scientific director of BELLA, a joint lab of BASF SE and KIT in Karlsruhe/Germany. He received his doctoral degree in the field of physical chemistry of solids under supervision of Hermann Schmalzried and Alan B. Lidiard. He was visiting professor at Seoul National University, Tohuku University/Sendai and Université d´Aix-Marseille, and got several awards for his scientific work. His research in physical chemistry of solids and electrochemistry spans a wide range from fundamental transport studies in mixed conductors and interface phenomena to in situ studies in electrochemical cells. Current key interests include all-solid-state batteries, lithium- and sodium-based batteries and new solid electrolytes. He is particularly interested in kinetics at interfaces and in in situ techniques. Jürgen Janek holds 12 patents and is author of about 300 peer-reviewed papers in a wide range of journals.

Professor, Helmholtz Institute Ulm
Stefano Passerini is Professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. His research activities are focused on electrochemical energy storage with special focus on improving the sustainability of high-energy batteries. Co-author of more than 500 papers (Source:Scopus; H-Index: 80; > 23,000 citations), a few book chapters and several international patents, he has been awarded the 2012 Research Award of the Electrochemical Society Battery Division, the ISE Fellow status and the membership of the Leopoldina Akademie.

Scientific Staff, Research Area Innovation Processes and Impacts of Technology
Marcel Weil currently works at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) , Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Marcel does research in Sustainability Assessment, Life Cycle Thinking, Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering and Ecological Engineering. A major focus is on emerging technologies, energy storage and energy grids. Their current project is 'Energy System 2050.'

Head of the Calorimeter Center, Thermophysics and Thermodynamics Group
Dr. Ziebert earned his Diploma degree and his PhD in Physics from the Saarland University Saarbrücken, Germany. In 2002 he joined the Research Center Karlsruhe (now Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)). He has more than 16 years of international R&D experience in thin film technology, modelling and thermal characterisation of materials for energy systems and more than 60 peer-reviewed articles. Since 2011 his research is focused on electrochemical, thermal and safety characterization of Li-ion cells. He has been project leader in 5 projects related to electrochemical energy storage and from 2011-2013 he was the manager of the EERA Joint Programme on Energy Storage. Currently Dr. Ziebert is the head of the Calorimeter Center.

Leader, BEV Cell Development Team
Wonhee Jeong obtained his BS and MS in chemistry from Seoul National University, Korea. He received a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University (USA) in 2008. After two years of postdoctoral research at UNC at Chapel Hill (USA), he joined LG Chem as a manager for the development of next-generation lithium-ion batteries. Currently, he is leader of BEV cell development team at LG Chem, and responsible for developing next-generation lithium-ion batteries for BEV applications.

Chief Commercial Officer
Kunal Phalpher has extensive international experience in the lithium-ion battery and renewable energy sectors, with a focus primarily on strategy and business development. His recent experience includes working as a Director of Product Development at a residential solar company and Director of Business Development with a lithium-ion battery manufacturer in North America. Prior to those roles, Kunal spent a number of years in Germany working in the renewable energy and energy storage sectors. Kunal earned his Bachelor of Applied Sciences in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto and holds a Master of Business Administration from the Rotman School of Management.

CEO
Christian studied Process Engineering at TU Braunschweig (Germany) and has worked in the research project LithoRec and designed LithoRec II at the Institute for Particle Technology / TU Braunschweig on the topic of Recycling of Lithium Ion Batteries. He developed and patented new recycling processes and led the project to the realization of a pilot plant. Recognizing the highest interest of industrial partners in this topic he co-founded the spin-off Lion Engineering GmbH with fellow PhD students and Professor Arno Kwade in 2011. Beginning in 2016, Christian started to focus full-time on being CEO of Lion Engineering.

Consultant
Dr. Klaus Brandt studied Physics and began his industrial career with the development of rechargeable Li-metal anode cells at Moli Energy in Canada over 40 years ago. After Moli, he worked on Li-ion batteries in Germany for VARTA and in the USA for Duracell. Later he managed two battery start-ups in Germany before he joined Clariant’s battery materials business. He is now an independent consultant in the area of Li-batteries.

Analyst
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 BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a minor in their interdisciplinary energy studies program.

Senior Manager
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Teamleader Batterysystems R&D
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Engagement Manager
Jonas Augustin is an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, based in Munich. He advises clients mainly in the automotive and machinery industries and is a core member of the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility – a leading think-tank on the future of mobility-related industries and the public sector. Mr. Augustin focuses his work mainly on research and development organizations and processes in the automotive industry. Additionally, he specializes in powertrain-related topics, in particular, on electric vehicle battery technology and the evolving industry around it.

Member of the Board of Directors
At the MEET Battery Research Center at Münster University (WWU) Falko Schappacher has been managing director since 2016. After attaining his doctorate degree (2008) in inorganic solid state chemistry, he gained many years of experience in different positions at the WWU and the MEET Battery Research Center. Since he started his position at the MEET Battery Research Center in 2009 he initiated and managed several public and industry funded projects. Falko Schappacher has been involved in more than 50 scientific publications and numerous conference presentations.

Manager, R&D
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Senior Chief Scientist, Science & Innovation Center
1993 Mitsubishi Kasei (now, Mitsubishi Chemical corporation) 1995 Tokyo Institute of Technology, DEng, Chemical engineering 2007 - 2012 Leader for program of "The safety electrolyte for LIB" funded by NEDO, Japan 2010 - 2012 Project leader for "Advanced battery material" 2016 - now Development of thermal management parts for Lithium ion battery

Head, Market Research
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Chief Technology Officer
Nicolo is an expert in energy storage and nanotechnologies. He is lead author on numerous patents covering nano-materials for energy storage electrodes, electrolytes, energy storage cells and modules. He holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering and MSc in Micro and Nanotechnologies from École Supérieure d'Électricité, and MSc in Physics Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.

Innovation Manager
Mr. Magnan is a professional engineer with more than 20 years of experience in the metallurgical industry. During his career, he held several positions within the lithium battery industry including: R&D Project Manager, Consultant and Quality Control Metallurgist. He also acted as Promoter and Project Manager of Phostech Lithium Inc. His department ensures the growth of the company by generating business opportunities based on the development of new products and processes. These products and processes are designed to maximize the benefits of the resource extracted and by optimizing the value of the co-products and the horizontal and vertical integration of its high-purity lithium hydroxide production activities. Mr. Magnan is the author/inventor of several patents in the lithium rechargeable batteries field. He holds a master’s degree in Materials Engineering from Laval University (2000).

CTO
Dr. Surya Moganty received PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 2009 from Clarkson University and subsequently worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University, where he developed nanomaterials for Li-ion batteries, including Li-S cathode materials and ionic liquid-based polymer electrolytes. Dr. Moganty is an expert in hybrid materials, ionic liquid electrolytes, and electrochemistry. He published 20 peer reviewed research articles and currently holds 10 US patents. Dr. Moganty, as a PI received $9M funding to date from various Federal and State funding agencies to support the R&D work at NOHMs Technologies

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Technical Lead Automotive, Battery Systems
No bio available

Sigve Aasebo has been working with environmental and strategic issues in the transport sector since 2005. Educated in business, but is now working for the type approval authorities in Norway with EV regulation, national zero emission targets, and focusing on battery development. Before joining the authorities, Sigve was 3 years in the consulting division of Ernst & Young (EY) and was an independent consultant for 8 years.

President
Education: Willamette University; Salem, Oregon; Chemistry, BS, 1987 Oregon State University; Corvallis, Oregon; Inorganic Chemistry, PhD 1996 Relevant Experience: Founder and President of OnTo Technology LLC (2002 - present): ·Served LGChem/Apple battery recall of 2004-2006. ·Awarded highly competitive SBIR research grants from NSF, DOE, EPA and ONAMI. ·Contract Research for clientele including Tesla Motors, Vehicle Recycling Partnership, Bend Research Inc., Central Oregon Community College, and Argonne National Laboratory. ·Postdoctoral Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with Dr. John B. Kerr (1998-2000), developed diagnostics for lithium-ion batteries, electrolyte reactivity and life-limitations in lithium-ion batteries, non-flammable electrolytes, transference number measurements in polymer electrolytes.·Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Willamette University (1995-97) ·Oregon State University PhD Thesis “Synthesis and Characterization of Polymer Electrolytes and Related Nanocomposites”, Professor Michael M. Lerner, research advisor. 

Technical Fellow Battery Systems & Electrification Architecture, Engineering Propulsion Systems
Roland Matthé is Technical Fellow for Battery Systems and Manager for electrification architecture at Opel Automobile GmbH which is part of Group PSA. He is working on future strategy for automotive battery systems and battery lifecycle including 2nd life projects. From 2007 to 2011 he had been leading the development of the VOLTec Lithium-Ion battery system for Opel Ampera and Chevrolet Volt at the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan, USA. Since 1997, he held various position in GM’s fuel cell team, leading system engineering group and fuel cell system component After joining Adam Opel AG in 1989 he worked on electric vehicle development and battery integration for the Opel Impuls electric vehicles gaining experience with all types of automotive battery systems. Roland Matthé received his “Diplom Ingenieur” title (master’s degree) in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt in 1989.

Partner, E-Mobility
Robert Stanek studied Business Management and Production Technology at the University of Stuttgart. He joined P3 in 2012 as an automotive consultant and worked before for major TIER1s and OEMs in the Technical Sales and Controlling departments. Since 2017 Robert is Partner at P3 and responsible for e-mobility area with focus on powertrain systems and cost management. His projects encompass among other things cost analysis of batteries, technical benchmarking of e-powertrain components and charging technologies as well as strategic analysis’ in the field of electric mobility for OEMs, Tier supplier and Equipment Manufacturer in Asia, USA and Europe. He is an expert in the field of product cost optimization and technical due diligence projects.

Head of e-Mobility
Markus Hackmann obtained the following diplomas: Special Engineering in E-mobility (VDI, Master’s of Engineering from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and Dipl. Ing. (FH, from Fachhoschschule Osnabrück. He joined P3 Automotive GmbH in 2006, where he is currently Partner and Lead E-Mobility.

Senior Scientist, Science & Technology
Calum Munro is a senior scientist in PPG’s mobility team; focused on the development and commercialization of paint and coatings technologies for autonomous and electric vehicles. Calum joined PPG in 1997 as a research scientist and earned his bachelor of science in Forensic and Analytical Chemistry and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow Scotland.

Battery System Expert – Storage Systems & Electrotechnics
Emmanuelle Lancelle-Beltran is a Chemistry Engineer (CPE Lyon, 1998). She received her PhD in Molecular Chemistry & Solid Elaboration in 2001 from the Montpellier II University, co-funded by Air Liquide. Since 2001, she had different positions as research engineer (Emory University, CEA/Le Ripault, EADS), continuously working on applied research in the field of material chemistry and catalysis. Dr. Lancelle-Beltran joined the Groupe PSA in 2006 in the Research & Development Division as Battery Team Leader, then Manager of High Voltage Battery Engineering Department, before being appointed to her current position in 2015 as Battery System Expert.

No bio available

Technical Director
Pyrotek produces graphite for lithium-ion batteries in the USA. Through our proprietary technology, we create the most consistent, stable, long-life material available. We’re constantly pushing the limits of graphite to improve battery performance. While we’re currently focused on graphite, we might expand to other materials in the future. As Pyrotek’s battery materials technical leader, I’m working with materials for lithium-ion batteries every day.

General Manager
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Electrical Energy Storage System Expert
After he graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1989, Mr. Origuchi started his engineering carrier in the vehicle research laboratory of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., where he was in charge of developing Nissan FEV presented in 1991. He continued to develop Altra EV and Tino HEV in Nissan taking a part of developing the world first Li-ion batteries for automotive applications until his resignation from Nissan at the end of 2000. Since 2002 he has been working for Renault in France always in charge of advanced battery development. He is now responsible for Renault’s EV battery development group.

Managing Director & Principal Consultant, Battery Raw Materials
Robert Baylis is Managing Director of Roskill. Robert joined Roskill in 2006, focusing initially on the cobalt market, and moved onto analysing the lithium market in 2008, since when he has further strengthened Roskill’s position as the leading source of insight on this nascent market. He has visited all bar one of the America’s brine operations, and the Roskill lithium team – now extended to four people - add Australia and China to this. Robert has also worked on reports and projects across other battery raw materials, notably nickel, cobalt and graphite, as well as technology metals such as rare earths, scandium, tellurium and hafnium. Robert has presented widely on various topics concerning mineral and metal supply, end-use developments and trends.

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Research Associate
Mr. Kairies studied electrical engineering in Aachen and Singapore. He is currently working as a research associate at RWTH Aachen University where he heads the research team “Market Development of Storage Systems”. Mr. Kairies is responsible for the scientific evaluation of the federal funding program for PV Battery Systems implemented by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi). His work focusses on grid integration of renewable energies and decentralized storage systems.

Post-Doc/CEO, Aachen University/Safion GmbH
Dr.-Ing. Alexander Gitis studied industrial engineering with the specializations in electrical engineering and innovation management at the RWTH Aachen University in 2011. After graduation he started to work as a research associate at the chair of electrochemical energy conversion and storage systems (ESS) held by Prof. Sauer at the Institute for Power Electronics and Electrical Drives (ISEA), RWTH Aachen University. In 2017 he received a doctorate in electrical engineering. After his doctorate he has continued his activities as a post-doc in Prof. Sauer’s working group. Dr. Gitis has been working in the field of batteries for almost eight years. In 2019 he found the Safion GmbH a Spin-Off from the RWTH Aachen University, where advanced battery diagnosis methods as well as safety systems are developed and commercialized. Since Mai 2019 the Safion GmbH is an official supplier of the Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG.

Senior Scientist, Emerging Applications & Prototyping
Over 12 years of expertise in the field of Composites, Thermoplastics and Application Development. Career Objective: Innovate, design and develop lightweight structures that can fly, run and communicate. Innovation & Research Contributions: Filed more than 25(+) disclosures ( 14 Patents are Issued), Published research work in Journals, Conferences and Authored a book on Thermoplastics for Automotive safety. Participating in research review committees for technology advancement through paper reviews and organizing technical discussions at conferences. Specialties: Composites, Engineering Thermoplastics, Finite Element Methods, CAE, Crash & Safety, Material characterization & NDE Methods.

Development Engineer, Materials Technology R&D
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Director, Overseas Business
Kelvin Wu is the Director of Overseas Business at SEMCORP where he is responsible for strategic planning, business development, marketing, and corporate development activities outside of China. Prior to SEMCORP, Kelvin has diverse experiences with Macquarie Capital, Mizuho Securities, and General Electric in investment banking, capital markets, general and strategic management. Kelvin finished MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Bachelor in ChemE from University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

President
Shmuel De-Leon 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, an MBA in quality control and reliability engineering from the Technion Institute in Haifa, as well as an Electronic Technician’s diploma.

Chairman of the Board
Michael Fetcenko 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, North America before becoming Director of Global Licensing. He is an inventor with over 70 patents and 100 publications in the NiMH and Li-Ion batteries during his 39 years in the battery industry. He has extensive experience in licensing, with over 40 NiMH licenses and leading the Argonne National Laboratory NCM cathode material patent enforcement and licensing effort which resulted in 12 licenses. He has led R&D, scale-up, and commercialization with 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 has served on the Sion Power technical steering committee and board of directors for five years representing BASF

Head of Applications Engineering
Stefan Werkstetter has worked in the field of automotive energy storage and system architecture for over 12 years. His background is in electrical engineering and data processing. Working for BMW in electrical system pre-development back in 2008, his focus was on 12V and 48V architectures with lead-acid batteries, Li-ion batteries, and ultracapacitors. In 2012, Stefan joined Maxwell Technologies, where he was involved in three ultracapacitor-based automotive applications on 12V and 48V, which are all in series production now. In 2018, Stefan joined Skeleton Technologies, where in his role as Head of Strategy he is leading applications engineering and product marketing to introduce future ultracapacitor generations in the market.

CTO
Josh Buettner-Garrett specializes in transitioning energy storage technologies out of the laboratory and into products.  As Solid Power’s CTO, he is responsible for leading the development of high energy batteries based on the company’s solid-state technology platform. Prior to his role at Solid Power, Josh led the Energy Storage team at ADA Technologies where he oversaw the development of advanced batteries and ultra capacitors for a variety of applications. Josh did his graduate studies at Colorado State University where he developed high capacity cathodes with improved cycle life, cost, and safety.

Global Marketing Manager, Batteris
Rui Liu is Global Marketing Manager Batteries in Solvay Specialty Polymers. She has more than 14 years of experience in fluoropolymers and related markets, started as technical development engineer. She has worked in Li-ion Battery market since 2014, having been deeply involved in the development of new generation Solef® PVDF for cathode binder, separator coating, and currently leading the new application exploration of high performance polymers in battery module and pack.

CEO
SpectraPower’s founder and CEO, James Kaschmitter founded/co-founded the following companies in energy storage: PolyStor Corporation (1993): pioneered Li-ion manufacturing in the U.S.; PowerStor Corp (1997): developed and manufactures carbon aerogel supercapacitor, sold to Cooper-Bussmann; UltraCell Corp (2002): developed and manufactures Reformed Methanol Micro Fuel Cells, sold to Brentronics; SpectraPower (2002/2014): advanced battery and supercap R&D.

Director
No bio available

Partner
Dr. Spreitzer studied industrial engineering at the University of Karlsruhe and obtained a PhD in technology management from the University of St. Gallen. He started his career as a management consultant with Booz. Allen & Hamilton. He then became CEO of the Internet start-up VitaGO (with €48 m in funding, one of the largest start-ups of that time). At Avaya-Tenovis, he was responsible for the services business, and then joined the management team of the internet service provider Freenet. Dr. Spreitzer has been Partner at Strategy Engineers GmbH & Co. KG since 2011.

President, EnergyBus e.V & General Manager
Dr. Yang currently is Vice Chairman of TD HiTech Energy Inc. The company is a spin-off company from Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry at University of Louvain, Belgium in 1997. Dr. Yang has worked in ITRI from 1997 to 2008. He has been the Deputy Director of the Energy Storage Materials and Technology Division. Dr. Yang has over 20 years of experience in EV battery developing, specializing in Li-ion battery. He has been a project manager for Li-ion battery development in LEV and HEV application as well as the LEV promotion project in Taiwan, those projects were supported by Taiwan government. He has more than 120 publications, 15 patents and over 60 conferences presentations in the field of Li-ion battery technology and EV applications. Beside the research experience, Dr. Yang also involve in standardization of battery safety and communication protocol in charging system of LEV (E-bike, E-scooter) product. He currently is vice president of BATSO e.V., and president of EnergyBus e.V., in Germany.

Department of Electrical Energy Storage Technology
No bio available

Senior Research & Development Engineer, Research and Development
Thermal Hazard Technology Ltd are the world-leader in the production of battery calorimeters and have a wide customer base among the principal cell manufacturers. Their most widely-sold product is the Accelerating Rate Calorimeter, which is complemented by a range of other calorimeters suited to safety aspects of battery development. Jake Kay MEng (Hons) is an experienced experimentalist and research engineer at THT. He was the principal researcher in the initial development of the Isothermal Control Platform (ICP) - the tool used to gather the data presented here. He has a speciality in calorimetry and thermal testing in the fields of Li-ion battery research and chemical reaction hazards. Previously he was Process Safety Engineer at the UK’s Health and Safety Laboratory and was technical lead on a number of successful large-scale experimental projects.

Technical Program Manager
EV engineering leader with deep experience in battery systems. I have led battery engineering for several automotive companies including startups and major OEMs, in globally distributed teams. I'm excited about new opportunities to develop better transportation for the world, whatever that may end up being. Specialties: mechanical design, battery technology, systems engineering, packaging and safety, design for automotive application, testing, program organization and management, leadership, startups

Research Scientist, Powertrains
Subhajeet Rath received a BTech degree in Mechanical Engineering from Vellore Institute of Technology, India in 2013, and an MSc degree in Automotive Technology from Technical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands in 2018 with a specialization in Control Systems. He worked at Mahindra and Mahindra ltd., India for 2 years as a powertrains development engineer. He is currently working at TNO, Helmond, The Netherlands as a research scientist working on modelling, state estimation and control of battery systems for automotive applications.

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Consultant, Battery Systems Consultant
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).

President
A broad-based battery industry consultant with experience ranging from materials research, cell design, and product development, to manufacturing, market, and business development and management, Dr. Anderman is well connected to material developers, battery producers, and automotive-battery users on three continents. He is known within the industry by a combination of technical depth and business and market comprehension.

Senior Principal Scientist, Battery and Fuel Cell Program
John Muldoon received his BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry from Queens University of Belfast. He completed his PhD degree at the University of Notre Dame under the direction of Professor Brown, studying air oxidation of organics using terminal oxo complexes of late transition metals. He worked as a Research Associate at the Scripps Research Institute under Professor Sharpless (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2001) and Professor Fokin, developing applications of click chemistry including in-situ click chemistry to discover HIV protease inhibitors and acceleration for chemical reactions on water. He is currently a Principal Scientist at Toyota Research Institute of North America. His research interests include future energy solutions such as multivalent batteries, lithium/sulfur batteries, Li-ion batteries, all-solid batteries and fuel cells. He has numerous patents in the area of new battery chemistry and fuel cell

No bio available

Battery Engineer
Jan Singer is a Research Assistant in the field of Electrical Energy Storage Systems, at the Chair for Electrical Energy Storage Systems, Institute for Photovoltaics, University of Stuttgart, Germany focusing on the detection of electrochemical effects induced by volume strain and developing new non-destructive characterization methods for Lithium-ion cells in his PhD work under the supervision of Prof. Dr-Ing. Kai Peter Birke. He started his professional career in 2006 as mechatronic technician at Harman/Becker Automotive Systems. In 2012, he received his Bachelor of Engineering from University of Applied Sciences Ulm in Energy Systems. Afterwards he joined University of Stuttgart and graduated with an MSc in Sustainable Electrical Power Supply in 2015.

Commercial Director Recycling and Refinery
Further developing Umicore's strategy how to position its capacities and capabilities for the recycling and refinery of batteries and battery materials. Optimize operations and growth objectives of the recycling and refinery team to build and operate a global industrial and commercial footprint. Leading day to day operations, but also build the basis to be prepared on future quantities and technologies in the market. Umicore wants to offer a closed a closed loop into the market, so an active follow up on the cobalt and nickel chemicals sales to different industries and applications is part of the scope. Responsible of the administrative follow up of the different current en future flows ensures a correct risk mitigation and P&L accountability.

Manager, Recycling Development
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Marketing & Sales Director, Rechargeable Battery Materials
Tom Van Bellinghen joined Umicore in 2009 as the Marketing & Sales Director taking care of Umicore´s Rechargeable Battery Materials business. Working out of the Umicore HQ in Brussels, he divides his time between Belgium and Asia. In 2012 he became also responsible for raw material purchasing before becoming the VP Marketing and Sales in 2018. Since 2019 he’s focusing his time on managing the relationships with OEM’s worldwide. Previously, Tom was a business Development Manager at Intel, and the Country Manager Benelux for Flir Systems. Tom Van Bellinghen holds a Master of Science degree in Electromechanical Engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven and obtained a degree in Business Administration from the Leuven Graduate School for Business Studies.

Chair, Applied Material Science for Energy Conversion and Storage
Martin Winter holds the Chair of Materials Science, Energy and Electrochemistry at the University of Muenster (WWU) in Germany. He is a founding director of MEET Battery Research Center at WWU and the founding director of the Helmholtz Institute Muenster, which is a branch of Forschungszentrum Juelich. Martin Winter is the spokesperson of German Battery Research and holds more than 40 awards and recognitions and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Professor, Institute for Photovoltaik
Prof. Kai Peter Birke has many years of experience in research, development, production and quality management in connection with electrochemical cells and energy storage devices, in particular lithium-ion technology. His research program as part of the professorship in electrical energy storage systems at the University of Stuttgart is based on three pillars. Firstly, he looks into the materials and chemical processes relating to electrochemical cells. Secondly, he is interested in whole battery systems such as those used for electromobility: here he investigates new ways of increasing energy density at the system level. His third focus area is that of very large storage devices such as those required to implement the energy turnaround. Since conventional electrochemical storage devices come up against their limits when confronted with such requirements, he looks into “power-to-gas” and “power-to-liquid” techniques to investigate how electrical energy can be used to generate hydrogen or hydrocarbons so as to save electrical energy as chemical energy.

Head of Battery Cell Development, Center of Excellence – Battery Cell
Dr. Matthias Ullrich is head of development in the newly created Center of Excellence Battery Cell at Volkswagen AG in Salzgitter. Previously, he had worked at Volkswagen since 2000 in the areas of group research, fuel cell development, drivetrain development and electrics / electronics development, where he was responsible for the development of the Volkswagen brand HV battery systems. Previous professional positions were at VARTA Batterie AG, the Hahn-Meitner-Institute and Hoechst AG. Matthias Ullrich studied physics and received his PhD from Darmstadt University, Germany.

Head of Development for Energy Supply and High-Voltage Systems
As the Head of Development for Energy Supply and High Voltage Systems, Dr. Holger Manz is responsible for all traction batteries and charging devices of the Volkswagen Brand . Currently he is strongly involved in the realization of Volkwagens MEB platform until 2019. Dr. Manz has a proven management track record and 20 years of experience in various R&D leadership positions in Volkswagen. He earned an Engineering Diploma at the Technical University of Braunschweig in aerospace engineering and holds a doctorate in smart materials.

CEO
Dr. Tal Sholklapper is the CEO and co-founder of Voltaiq, the industry leader in big data analytics for battery OEMs, transportation, energy storage and consumer electronics companies. Tal has a BS in Physics and Applied Mathematics and an MS and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley.

ESS Specialist
Dr. Jens Groot has worked within research and development for heavy-duty vehicles with the Volvo Group since 2003 focusing on battery characterization, evaluation and modelling. Since 2012 he holds a position as energy storage specialist primarily working with cycle life evaluation and cell modelling in both thermal and electrochemical domain. He received his PhD from Chalmers University of Technology, where the main focus of his research was on high-power Li-ion battery lifetime prediction and modelling.

Director LIB Application Technology, Consortium für elektrochemische Industrie
Dr. Haufe graduated in 2001 from the Technical University of Munich with a PhD in chemistry / electrochemistry. He then worked in the field of fuel cell development for various companies. At the Sartorius AG he spent more than six years as group leader for stack and application technology. In 2008, he joined the Wacker Chemie AG as laboratory and project leader to develop new anodes materials for lithium-ion batteries. Within these activities he is responsible for the lithium-ion battery application technology since 2017.

Manager, Business Development
Terence has more than 20 yrs 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.

CSO
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.

Senior Battery Systems Engineer
Dr Wasim Sarwar is a Senior Battery Systems Engineer at Williams Advanced Engineering, where he is responsible for the design and development of a range of high performance battery systems, which include OEM hypercars, multiple high-profile motorsport batteries, and novel aircraft. He is also active in the plant design and commissioning of a new UK-based battery manufacturing facility. He gained his PhD in Electrochemical Engineering from Imperial College London, and formerly worked for Jaguar Land Rover.

Research Analyst, Battery Raw Materials
Milan Thakore joined Wood Mackenzie in 2015, working in both metals and the energy markets team. Subsequently he joined the consulting team to develop Wood Mackenzie’s deep dive study into lithium demand and most recently is providing analysis for the new battery raw materials service. Milan holds a BSc in Materials Science and Engineering from Imperial College London and an MSc in Metals and Energy Finance from Imperial College Business School. Prior to Wood Mackenzie, Milan worked in the automotive sector as an engineer at GKN.

Team Leader Post-Mortem Analysis and Aging Mechanisms
Dr. rer. nat. Thomas Waldmann studied chemistry at Ulm University, where he received his PhD in physical chemistry. In 2011, he joined the ECM group at Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung Baden-Württemberg (ZSW).He became team leader of the Post-Mortem and ageing mechanisms group at ZSW in 2017.

Deputy Head of Department, Battery Test Center
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