Materials Scientist, CSE
Dr. Daniel P. Abraham has authored over 120 articles in peer-reviewed journals that span the various frontier areas of lithium battery research. These areas include crystal structure transformations in layered oxides, silicon electrode development, solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation/dissolution mechanisms, stress evolution in electrodes during cycling, influence of electrode/particle coatings on cell performance, electrolyte additives development, and electrochemical modeling. His work enables the development of materials and components that enhance battery performance, life, and safety.

Manager, Advanced Battery Technology
Dr. Khalil Amine is an Argonne Distinguished Fellow and the director of the Advanced Battery Technology team at Argonne National Laboratory. He is also the Deputy Director of the US/China clean energy research center and serves as a committee member of the U.S. National Research Consul at US Academy of Sciences on battery related technologies and adjunct professor at Stanford University. He is a 2003 recipient of Scientific America’s Top Worldwide 50 Researcher Award, a 2008 University of Chicago distinguished scientist award, a 2009 recipient of the US Federal Laboratory Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer, 2013 DOE Vehicle technologies office award and is the five-time recipient of the R&D 100 Award, which is considered as the Oscar of technology and innovation. In addition, he was recently awarded the ECS battery technology award and the international battery association award. Dr. Amine holds over 186 patents and patent applications and has 492 publications with google h-index of 98. From 1998-2012. He serves as the president of IMLB. He is also the chairmen of the international automotive lithium battery association, ECS fellow and associate editor of the journal of Nano-Energy.

President
Menahem Anderman is President of Total Battery Consulting, Inc. and founder of the Advanced Automotive Battery Conferences, Dr. Anderman has led the development and commercialization of high-power Ni-Cd and Li-Ion batteries and spent the last 17 years conducting assessments of energy-storage technologies for advanced vehicles, publishing xEV Insider Industry Reports and chairing the AABC. Dr. Anderman provides technological assessments to companies worldwide. His client list includes most major automakers, leading international battery developers and suppliers, financial institutions, and government agencies. His access to automakers and battery companies gives Dr. Anderman insight into the latest trends in the advanced-vehicle market.

CEO
Jason Appelbaum is a serial entrepreneur who has exited numerous organizations, he became the CEO of EverCharge in 2014 and pioneered the power management technology that allows the company to install up to 10x more EV charging stations than any other competitor at any given location. Utilizing this revolutionary technology EverCharge solves the power bottleneck that many cities face today when it comes to adding EVSEs. EverCharge installs nationwide in the USA and is the ideal solution for both existing structures as well as planned new developments.

Vice President
Dr. Brian Barnett leads marketing and customer relations. In addition to being a noted technology manager, he is a globally recognized scientist and expert in advanced battery materials and battery safety. He has developed and maintained a vast network of contacts and collaborators in industry, government and universities around the globe dating back to the earliest development of lithium-ion technology. Dr. Barnett chaired, for thirteen years, the International Conference on Power Requirements in Mobile Computing and Wireless Communications known as Power (or Portable Power). These conferences, unique at the time, brought together all the key stakeholders during a period of immense change in portable products and their power sources; manufacturers of batteries and battery materials, suppliers to the battery industry as well as the major OEMs in mobile computing products and wireless communications devices from North America, Asia and Europe. Working with a core group of industry experts, Dr. Barnett had responsibility for the technical program for this conference, which encompassed the technical and market aspects of these dynamic fast-growing product categories. He is poised to take CAM-7 and related offers of CAMX Power to the key players in this network. At TIAX, Dr. Barnett, as Vice President, had a variety of important roles in technology and market development including large program management, group management, interface with many government agencies as well as being a significant contributor to the development of CAM-7, safety programs and other battery materials. Before joining TIAX in 2002, Dr. Barnett was a Vice President and Managing Director at Arthur D. Little, working in many critical and significant roles involving the launch and execution of major laboratory-based technology development programs in energy such as proprietary polymer electrolyte battery technology, novel carbon anode materials, and fuel cells. He had management responsibility for the firm’s Chemistry and Applied Materials business He also served on Arthur D. Little’s Board of Directors. He received his BSc in Chemistry from McGill University and his PhD in Electrochemistry from the University of Ottawa. He is widely published and has delivered invited presentations at many conferences.

President
Richard Baxter advises investors and project developers on opportunities in the energy storage market. Richard has worked across the energy storage industry driving growth through corporate, business, and project development opportunities. Prior to Mustang Prairie Energy, Richard was Director of Product Strategy for Premium Power Corporation where he developed market positioning and competitive strategies for the firm’s flow battery systems. At Charles River Associates, Richard supported private equity and strategic investor clients targeting firms in the energy storage industry for investment and acquisition. As an investment banker with Ardour Capital, Richard led and participated in funding, acquisition and divestiture events for energy storage and renewable energy firms.

President-Founder, Lion Electric
Biography

Associate Vice President
Cassie is an Associate Vice President at Energy Impact Partners, a $650m fund investing in energy startups, where she is responsible for EIP’s west coast presence. Prior to joining EIP, she worked for 5 years at SunPower, one of the largest global solar companies, in policy and strategy. At SunPower she was responsible for global market analysis, legal and regulatory assessment, and new country entry. She has also gained operating experience at energy storage, micro-grid and energy asset management startups in business development and finance roles. Cassie holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a BA in Economics from Harvard University, and was selected for Forbes 30 Under 30 in Energy (2018).

Peter Bruce’s research interests embrace materials chemistry and electrochemistry, especially lithium and sodium batteries. Recent efforts have focused on the synthesis and understanding of new materials for lithium-ion batteries, on understanding anomalous oxygen redox processes in high capacity Li-ion cathodes, the challenges of the lithium-air battery and the influence of order on the ionic conductivity of polymer electrolytes. His research has been recognised by a number of awards and fellowships, including from the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the German Chemical Society and The Electrochemical Society. He was elected to the Royal Society (UK Academy of Sciences) in 2007 and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Scottish Academy of Sciences) in 1994. As well as directing the UK Energy Storage Hub, SUPERGEN, Peter is Chief Scientist in the Faraday Institution, the UK center for research on electrochemical energy storage.

CTO
Biography

Emilio E. Bunel, PhD, Senior Analyst, SQM, Chile; Senior Advisor, Physical Sciences and Engineering Directorate, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne
Emilio Bunel received his M.S. in Chemical Engineering in 1980 from the University of Chile and his PhD in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1988. He began his professional career at DuPont Central Research as a member of the Catalysis Group working on new catalytic processes to produce nylon intermediates. In 2001 Bunel was hired by Eli Lilly to establish the Catalysis Group within the Discovery Research Organization. In 2003 he was appointed Associate Director at Amgen, Inc., and subsequently in January 2008, Research Fellow at Pfizer, Inc. After spending twenty years in industry, in October 2008 Emilio Bunel was named director of the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division at U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, where he is responsible for directing a science-based research, development, and earlystage engineering organization that conducts both fundamental and applied research in chemistry and chemical engineering. In November 2017 Emilio Bunel was named VP of Innovation at SQM which is one of the largest lithium producers in the world.

Institute of Transportation Studies
Dr. Burke holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie Institute of Technology, a M.A. degree in Aerospace Engineering and a PhD in Aerospace and Mechanical Sciences from Princeton University. Since 1974, his career work has involved many aspects of electric and hybrid vehicle design, analysis, and testing. He was the head systems engineer on the U.S. Department of Energy–funded Hybrid Vehicle (HTV) project while working at the General Electric Research and Development Center in Schenectady, N.Y. While a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Union College in Schenectady, he continued his work on electric vehicle technology through consulting with the Argonne and Idaho National Engineering (INEL) Laboratories on various DOE electric vehicle and battery programs. Dr. Burke was employed from 1988-1994 at INEL as a principal program specialist in the electric and hybrid vehicle programs. Dr. Burke joined the Research Faculty of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis in July 1994. He has performed research on and taught graduate courses on advanced electric driveline technologies specializing on batteries, ultracapacitors, fuel cells, and hybrid vehicle design, control and simulation. Dr. Burke has authored over 100 reports and papers on electric and hybrid vehicles, batteries, and ultracapacitors.

Vice President of New Ventures
Conrad Burke is a serial entrepreneur and head of ISF Incubator, a new startup program housed within impact invention company Intellectual Ventures. He recently sold his startup company, Innovalight, a nanomaterials technology firm specialized in the photovoltaics (solar) sector, to DuPont Corporation. He subsequently managed two different global marketing businesses within DuPont – photovoltaics materials and bioscience enzymes. Conrad has over 25 years of experience in multinational and technology startup companies spanning sectors from fiber-optics, semiconductors and nanotechnology to biofuels and renewable energy. He has extensive international experience, having held management positions in Japan, the UK, Germany, and the US. Conrad has also worked in private equity as a venture partner at Sevin Rosen Funds helping build young technology startup companies.

Principal
Lauren Burrows is a Principal of WindSail Capital Group, where she leads origination and underwriting of investments in energy innovation and sustainability companies. Prior to joining WindSail, Lauren worked for GE Energy Financial Services, where she evaluated, structured, and executed investments in renewable energy assets. Prior to joining GE, Lauren was an associate at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, where she invested in Massachusetts based clean energy companies. Prior to joining the Clean Energy Center, Lauren was an associate at Wind Point Partners, a Chicago based middle market private equity firm. Previously, Lauren was an analyst in the Investment Banking Division of Lehman Brothers. Lauren received an A.B. cum laude from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Investor
Andy is an investor at Comet Labs, leading investments in energy, automotive, and industrial startups built on ML and robotics technology. He enjoys working with warrior founders whose focus is creating real world value and an eye to global sustainability. Andy previously founded Stower Energy, a startup designing solutions to specific end-customer demands and early machine learning strategies for distributed energy assets. He also worked with the investment team at CalCEF, and was project lead for utility scale wind and solar developments with the Martifer Group.

Technical Business Development Manager
For Solvay Special Chem Global Business Unit, Dominick Cangiano is in charge of the technical and commercial development of the salts and additives for electrolytes for batteries in North America. He has a PhD in Polymer Chemistry from the City University of New York.

COO
Catherine is a founding member of the Sober Steering team, guiding its development even prior to its inception in 2008. Catherine’s strategic and analytical skills are rooted in investment banking, having spent her formative professional years at JPMorgan in New York. Knowing her passion was for technology startups, Catherine left investment banking and spent five years working directly, with and learning from recognized entrepreneurs who had themselves built successful, global businesses. In this capacity, Ms. Carroll provided corporate finance services including M&A, growth strategy and financing to tech startups and rapidly growing small businesses. Through this experience, Catherine learned, from working inside multiple successful startups, how to build a business from concept through commercialization.

Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics
Dr. Fu-Kuo Chang is professor at the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department, Stanford University, California. His primary research interest is in the areas of multi-functional materials and intelligent structures with particular emphases on structural health monitoring, intelligent self-sensing diagnostics, and integrated health management for space and aircraft structures as well safety-critical assets and medical devices. He has been recipient of many scientific awards, among them the Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) Lifetime Achievement Award, The Boeing Company (2004), and Life-Time Achievement Award, SPIE NDE/SHM (2010). He is the Editor-in-Chief of Int. J. of Structural Health Monitoring. He is also a Fellow of AIAA and ASME and a member of Advisory board of US ARL.

Director, Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), Argonne National Laboratory; Distinguished Professor of Physics, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago
George Crabtree, an Argonne National Laboratory Senior Scientist and Distinguished Fellow, is the Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research. As JCESR Director, Crabtree directs the overall strategy and goals of the research program and operational plan, acts as liaison to executives of JCESR partner organizations, and represents JCESR with external constituencies and advisory committees. He has won numerous awards for his research, including the Kammerlingh Onnes Prize for his work on the physics of vortices in high-temperature superconductors. This prestigious prize is awarded once every three years; Crabtree is its second recipient. He has won the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Solid State Physics four times, a notable accomplishment. He won an R&D 100 Award for his pioneering development of magnetic flux imaging systems. Crabtree is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Charter Member of ISI’s Highly Cited Researchers in Physics, a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Crabtree has published more than 440 papers in leading scientific journals, collected more than 18,000 career citations, and has given more than 150 invited talks at national and international scientific conferences. His research interests include energy storage, materials science, nanoscale superconductors and magnets, superconductivity, and highly correlated electrons in metals. He has led DOE workshops on next-generation energy storage, hydrogen, solar energy, superconductivity, and materials under extreme environments, and co-chaired the Undersecretary of Energy’s assessment of DOE’s applied energy programs. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on the hydrogen economy, meeting sustainable energy challenges and energy innovation Hubs. Crabtree earned his PhD in Condensed Matter Physics from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Battery Solution Manager
Gaetan is the technical lead at CD-adapco for all battery-related technology and responsible for the dissemination of best practice usage of CD-adapco tools. His knowledge spans a wide range of numerical approaches and length scales, from spatially complex highly resolved models to microstructural electrochemistry problems. Gaetan also works very closely with CD-adapco’s consultants in this field defining future strategy and anticipating market needs. Prior to his current role Gaetan worked in the computational fluid dynamics validation group within CD-adapco where he wrote CD-adapco’s first technical paper covering lithium ion battery models. Before joining CD-adapco Gaetan worked for Areva in France and Graduated from Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University with a MSc in Fluid Mechanics.

CEO
Gary founded DD Dannar in 2011. Prior to this Gary operated Little Roadside Management a small equipment company where he worked closely with the Caterpillar and AGCO on exclusive distribution and marketing agreements. Gary has also served in senior management positions with Ford Motor, The General, New Holland and Alamo Group across North America, Europe and Asia. Gary's expertise is in corp. relations and product development and distribution.

Battery Technical Discipline Lead, Propulsion and Power Division
Eric C. Darcy, Ph.D, has spent his 30-year career at NASA in the areas of battery design, verification, and safety assessments for the rigors of manned spacecraft applications. As Battery Technical Discipline Lead at NASA-JSC, his main objective has been the development of safe, while high performing, battery systems with a deep focus on understanding, preventing, and mitigating latent defects that could lead to catastrophic cell internal short circuits. With National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) colleagues, he is co-inventor of the patented On-demand Internal Short Circuit Device that has provided significant design insights into the cell response during thermal runaway (TR), enabled valid battery TR propagation assessment, and received the prestigious R&D100 award in 2016. He has led NASA’s design and test efforts for providing a path for developing safe, high performing Li-ion spacecraft batteries using small commercial cells. He was selected for a NASA Ambassador Fellowship in 2010 to spent 9 months with battery colleagues at NREL in Golden, CO. He was selected for a Navy Panel to guide the review and revision of their safety verification processes for large Li-ion batteries after their Advanced Seal Delivery Vehicle battery incidents in 2008. He’s been invited to give talks at numerous battery conferences, has over 30 publications and 2 patents, and has participated in audits of numerous Li-ion cell production line audits across Asia and North America.

Products and Sustainability Director
Biography

CEO
Shmuel De-Leon is a leading international expert in the business of energy storage. Prior to founding the company, Shmuel held for over 21 year’s 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.

Senior Associate
Kevin joined Aster in January 2015 and is based in the San Francisco office. Prior to Aster, Kevin had more than 6 years of investment experience at eris CAPITAL, a large European family office. He began covering public companies in energy and resource-related industries in 2011 and began making and managing investments in venture and growth stage companies in the same sectors in 2012. He studied Business and Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a CFA Charterholder.

Battery Research Engineer
Biography

Vice President, Sales and Business Development
Paul Drysch is the Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Civil Maps. With more than 20 years of experience in the automotive and connected car markets, Paul is responsible for driving new strategic partnerships and business opportunities with OEM's, automotive manufacturers, mapping providers, and various mobility companies focused on advancing autonomous driving technology. Paul's expertise stems from his experience leading worldwide sales teams at mobility and telematics companies including RideCell, Cisco Jasper, and Aeris Communications. Paul was a co-founder of the executive team at WirelessCar North America and is also on the advisory board of for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Partner
Saman is a passionate supporter of early-stage startups. He has built three companies in the areas of e-commerce, IP television, and logistics management, and faced the challenges of building, focusing, and scaling a company. Saman joined Baidu Ventures as a Partner, leading the US team, now investing in AI companies in their early stages, and assisting by bringing Baidu’s considerable resources in data-sets, technical talent, and domain expertise to bear in an effort to turbocharge the companies he invests in. Saman has previously spent more than 15 years in China, and has held positions at Honeywell, Verizon, Deloitte Consulting and Microsoft in roles ranging from R&D to operations optimization.

Managing Director
Michael Fetcenko is Managing Director of BASF Battery Materials and formerly President of Ovonic Battery Company. Ovonic, which invented and developed NiMH batteries, was acquired by BASF in February 2012. He joined Ovonic in 1980 and has led the R&D and commercialization efforts with over 70 patents and 100 publications in the NiMH battery field. His inventions are used in all NiMH batteries for consumer and vehicle applications. Mr. Fetcenko continues to direct all NiMH operations, and is also a member of the BASF Battery leadership team which directs BASF’s Li-Ion cathode materials and electrolyte commercial activities. He now leads all North America operations for BASF Battery Materials including Manufacturing and Sales & Marketing. In addition, he leads IP for the Battery Materials division globally and serves on the Steering Committee for Sion Power where BASF is a minority owner. Recently led successful high profile NCM cathode enforcement action at US International Trade Commission, bringing together BASF, ANL and outside counsel resulting in a complete victory and broad exclusion order against infringing product. Mr. Fetcenko's inventions were nominated with co-inventor Stanford R. Ovshinsky for the European Inventor Award enabling NiMH batteries for consumer and HEV applications such as the Toyota Prius. Mr. Fetcenko gave an invited lecture to ~100 patent examiners at the European Patent Office regarding his NiMH patents, taking the technology from the laboratory to widespread commercial use, licensing to over 40 companies worldwide and successful enforcement of the technology through dispute resolution. He has given similar invited lectures before the Japan and United States patent offices, and is a widely acknowledged authority in the field of batteries through numerous invited lectures and publications in journals such as Science magazine, Journal of Applied Physics and invited chapters on NiMH batteries in the Handbook of Batteries.

Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
James Friend (Professor, UC San Diego, PhD 1998) is an expert in acoustic wave interaction with fluids and solids at micro- to nano-scales. He spent a decade in Australia and four years in Japan as a faculty researcher before joining UCSD in late 2014. He has published over 260 peer-reviewed articles and has 28 patents granted or in process, and has won numerous awards over his career, most recently being elevated to a Fellow of the IEEE.

Managing Director
Quin is the Managing Director at Autotech Ventures. He brings to Autotech a passion for forming ground transport startups, assembling teams of complementary people, raising capital, and growing partnerships with corporations. He was part of the founding team at Better Place, responsible for partnerships with automakers and auto parts suppliers while living in Israel, Japan, and China. Prior to that, he was a management consultant at Strategic Management Solutions, serving automaker and consumer electronics clients. While earning his MS degree in Management Science and Automotive Engineering from Stanford, he worked at Stanford’s Dynamic Design Lab developing autonomous vehicles. While earning his BS degree in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell, he was a leader of the Cornell Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team.

Technology Analyst
Luke is a Technology Analyst at IDTechEx, where his areas of research include electric vehicles and energy storage. Luke holds a Master of Physics from the University of Bath, where he studied a variety of topics including photonics, nanoscience and condensed matter. Before joining IDTechEx, Luke completed his Master's placement at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. His focus was on increasing the computational efficiency of an in-house software called SMITER, which models the heat distribution of components inside a fusion experiment. This work contributed to the ITER project, currently under construction in France, which hopes to be the first fusion experiment to generate a surplus of energy. 
Luke has also completed an industrial placement at BAE Systems, where he helped test radar-absorbent materials, and engineer high-bandwidth antennas. He received a Chairman's Award for Innovation for his experimental work in November 2014. More recently, Luke completed an internship at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, where he published a report and datasets on policy drivers for behind-the-meter energy storage.

Advanced Battery TS
Biography

CEO, Global Corporate Management
Biography

Technical Fellow, Energy Storage Systems
Oliver Gross is an Energy Storage Systems Specialist, for High Voltage Energy Storage Solutions, at Chrysler Group, LLC, where he is responsible for the Battery systems technology roadmap for Chrysler and Fiat Group. 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.

Business Development Manager
Biography

Professor, Research HV Battery Systems
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 group research department Daimler AG. 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

Managing Director
Paul has over 24 years of experience in the energy sector spanning both private equity investing and investment banking. Prior to joining AIM in 2016, he was a Partner at Hudson Clean Energy Partners, a private equity firm specializing in the clean energy sector, where he led sourcing, execution, portfolio management and harvesting of various growth equity investments. Before that, Paul had 14 years of energy sector banking experience at Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, where he covered power & utilities, renewable energy, oil & gas clients and energy sector investment firms. Paul obtained his B.A. in economics from The University of Chicago.

Founder & CEO
Dr. Qichao Hu is the Founder CEO of SolidEnergy Systems, a venture-backed Li-Metal battery technology company that he started to commercialize his research at MIT and Harvard. SolidEnergy’s mission is to unlimit technological innovation by removing barriers to longer lasting batteries. A Forbes 30 under 30 and Department of Energy Clean Energy prize winner, Dr. Hu is passionate about deep science-based entrepreneurship and the broader environmental impact of energy policies.

General Manager, Industrial Technology Unit
Sachiya Inagaki, born in Tokyo, Japan, has worked with Yano Research Institute since August 2000, when he joined the CMEO (Chemical Materials and Electronics & Optics) department as market researcher. Experienced a lot of industry fields such as Laser, Optical lens, some electronics devices, and so on. Also, experienced national related research project and business matching between Japan and Korea. Conducted some consulting service such as setting up a business plan, strategy to enter a market based on an experienced market research. Recently, he has focused primarily on market research for LiB cells and four major LIB components (cathode, anode, electrolyte, and separator). He traveled to many different countries and regions around the world to conduct interviews with key persons in the industries and to carry out any other types of on-site surveys. Since August 2011, he had been in a position of general manager of Seoul branch office for three years and he has been in a position of general manager of Industrial technology unit at headquarter in Tokyo, Japan. He has acquired MBA from Tsukuba University in 2007.

Senior Market Analyst, Marketing Intelligence
Michael Insulan is a commodity analyst with Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), focusing on cobalt. Michael has been involved with the commodities industry since 2003, having previously worked with Shell in business portfolio analysis. Prior to joining ERG, Michael worked at CRU in London and Santiago, in both consulting and analysis. Most recently he managed CRU's aluminium raw materials team, covering bauxite, alumina, and carbon products. Michael holds a BA in International Business, Finance and Economics from the University of Manchester, and a PhD in Economics from Manchester Business School.

Assistant Manager, Battery Evaluation & Analysis
Dr. Ishihara majored Electrochemistry and received his PhD from Kyoto University Graduate School of Engineering in 2013, then he joined Toyota Motor Corporation. Since joining Toyota, he has worked in the safety evaluation of lithium-ion.

President
David Jacoby, President of Boston Strategies International, is a renowned energy industry economist and M&A adviser. He has been improving corporate strategy and performance for over 30 years, especially in gas, oil, and renewable power. He has written five books, including The High Cost of Low Prices, Optimal Supply Chain Management in Oil, Gas, and Power Generation, and The Economist Guide to Supply Chain Management. Formerly, he taught at Boston University, and wrote for The Economist Intelligence Unit. He holds an MBA from Wharton and holds a wide array of industry certifications.

Managing Director
Sam is the founder and Managing Director of Cairn Energy Research Advisors. He has more than ten years of experience as an analyst, consultant and executive in the energy storage industry. Prior to Cairn ERA, he has worked at Navigant Research and IDC as an analyst and has also served as CEO at Panea Energy and Cygnus Energy Storage. He is an authority on battery usage on the grid, transportation and consumer electronics. He is an accomplished public speaker and a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and events throughout the world, including the Battery Show, Interbattery Korea, Stockage D’Energie and the Energy Storage Association annual meeting. He is frequently quoted in multiple press outlets, including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. He lives and works in Boulder, CO.

Global Technology Leader, Application Development
Biography

Senior Program Manager
Haresh Kamath is Program Manager for Energy Storage at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), managing the Institute’s research into the development, assessment, and application of energy storage technologies for grid storage applications. He is also a Technology Scout for EPRI’s Technology Innovation Program, where he investigates advanced materials technologies for power delivery applications, and advanced energy storage technologies. Kamath joined EPRI PEAC in 2002 as a project engineer in energy storage and distributed generation. His responsibilities grew to include management of the energy technologies group, encompassing EPRI Solutions efforts in energy storage, distributed generation, energy efficiency, and electric transportation. He was an author for the EPRI-DOE Handbook of Energy Storage and serves on the board of directors of the Electricity Storage Association. Before joining EPRI, Kamath worked at Lockheed Martin Space Systems as a product engineer responsible for spacecraft batteries. He also served as an applications engineering and business development manager at a startup energy storage company. Kamath received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in chemical engineering from Stanford University.

Principal Staff Member, Power Sources R&D
Dr. Mohan Karulkar is a chemical engineer with over 10 years of experience in design, fabrication, and testing of next generation batteries. His expertise spans rechargeable lithium ion and lithium air, primary lithium, molten salt batteries, and next-gen high energy materials. During his time at Ford Motor Company and Sandia National Laboratories, he has driven efforts to define and characterize the next generation of energy storage, improving safety and performance for automotive applications and beyond.

Program Manager, Implementation
Patrick Kelly is leading the EV Initiative at EDF Renewable Energy. EDF RE, a subsidiary of EDF Energies Nouvelles, is a leading U.S. independent power producer boasting over 30 years of experience across a broad spectrum of services. Patrick's previous experience includes pit stops with a hydrogen startup, a semiconductor equipment supplier, and the United States Marine Corps. Patrick holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia and a MBA from the Rady School of Management at UCSD.

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).

CTO, R&D
Dr Bartek Kras has over 15 years of experience related to the management of enterprises, projects, and innovation. He ran several projects with high technologies completed with implementations around the world, among other things, for companies Citroen, Solaris, Irizar, Ursus, Temsa, Bosch, Smith Electric Vehicles. Manager of several R&D projects in international consortia. He has over 8 years of practical. He currently runs R&D department of battery development at Impact Clean Power Technology S.A. since 2011. experience in conducting, supervising and managing the research process and the implementation of the research to commercial products.

CEO
Dr. Sujeet Kumar is founder and CEO of Zenlabs Energy where he leads the development of high energy lithium ion batteries for Electric Vehicles, Drones & UAVs. Prior to Zenlabs, he served as CTO of Envia Systems leading the company through USABC, ARPA-E and several customer funded battery development programs. Dr. Kumar worked as a senior scientist for Greatbatch, leading the development and scale-up of nano-crystalline silver vanadium oxide cathode materials. He served as principal scientist at Nanogram Devices Corporation, where he developed battery components used in implantable medical devices, and as a project manager at Nanogram Corp where he led several energy storage projects. In 2009, Dr. Kumar won an R & D 100 award for his work on high energy lithium ion batteries. Dr. Kumar has a PhD in Materials Science from University of Rochester and is inventor of over 60 patents.

Senior Member of the Technical Staff, Advanced Power Sources R&D
Dr. Joshua Lamb is currently a Senior Member of the Technical Staff with the Advanced Power Sources R&D organization at Sandia National Laboratories. He primarily works as part of the Battery Safety and Abuse Testing Laboratory (BATLab) team. The team focuses on the development of inherently safe lithium-ion batteries by understanding the consequences and mechanisms of failure, developing cradle-to-grave battery testing, and developing new materials for use in battery systems. Joshua earned his PhD in Metallurgical Engineering in 2008 and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering in 2002 from the University of Nevada. Since joining Sandia in 2011, Joshua’s research interests include advanced techniques for determining the stability of lithium-ion batteries and the development of advanced battery abuse and safety tests.

CEO
Jungwoo Lee is CEO of South 8 Technologies, developing next-generation energy storage devices with the use of our patented Liquefied Gas Electrolyte technologies. She received her BA in physics from Wellesley College and MS in NanoEngineering from UC San Diego researching innovative battery technologies along with a Management and Entrepreneurism Certificate from the Rady School of Management. Previously, she worked to create industry scalable and impactful technologies at Panasonic and MIT. Jungwoo joined South 8 Technologies in 2016, and since then they have been awarded numerous federal, state and private grant opportunities which has funded their breakthrough research.

Managing Partner
Bill is a Co-founder and Managing Partner of Braemar Energy Ventures. He is currently active with investments in Utility, Flywheel, Renew Financial, LusBio, General Fusion and Carbon Free Chemical Holdings. Bill was an original team member of Sithe Energies, a global leader in independent power development. He then joined NPS Industries as Director of Corporate Development and entered the energy technology investing arena at Mantis Holdings, a venture capital firm focused on environmental and energy efficiency. Bill serves on the Advisory Committee of the NYC Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (NYC ACRE). He has a BA in Physics and an MS in Applied Energy Science from New York University.

Dean, Research Institute
Dr. Chengdu Liang received his PhD from the University of Tennessee Knoxville. After 10-year of working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory he moved back to China in 2015 through the National Distinguished Expert Program through the 1000-talent recruiting plan at Zhejiang University. He is currently holding a dual assignment as a full professor at Zhejiang University and as the Dean of Research Institute at CATL.

Department Manager, Energy Storage and Advanced Vehicles, Clean Energy & Transportation Division
Dr. Bor Yann Liaw is manager of the Energy Storage and Advanced Vehicles Department at Idaho National Laboratory. Before joining INL, Dr. Liaw was a specialist and tenured faculty member at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. At HNEI, he focused on advanced power source systems for vehicle and energy storage applications. He received his bachelor’s in chemistry from the National Tsinghua University in Taiwan, his master’s in chemistry from the University of Georgia, and his doctorate in materials science and engineering from Stanford University. He conducted his post-doctoral fellowship research at the Max-Plank Institute of Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany. For the past three decades, Dr. Liaw has been involved in R&D projects related to electric and hybrid vehicle evaluation and advanced battery diagnostics and prognostics. His major research activities comprise laboratory and real-life battery and vehicle testing, data collection and analysis, battery modeling and simulation, battery performance and life prediction, battery rapid charging technology development, and battery diagnoses and prognoses. He also expanded his endeavors to bio-fuel cells, including sugar-air alkaline battery development, and transforming ambient energy resources into useful power sources for portable or stationary applications. Dr. Liaw has co-authored more than 150 technical papers, seven book chapters, and eight patents and patent applications. He is currently an associate editor for the Journal of Electrochemical Society and a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.

Executive Engineer
Michael Lord is an Executive Engineer for the Emission Regulatory Group in Toyota Motor North America. Mr. Lord is the Toyota North American lead for California regulatory and policy activities related to zero emission vehicles (ZEV) and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction. He works closely with both sales and engineering on developing Toyota’s technology roll-out strategy and acts as the interface with California regulatory authorities on implementation, policy, infrastructure and incentive issues related to advanced powertrains, such as Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV), Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV). Mr. Lord has a B.A. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania and studied Japanese language at Sophia University in Japan.

Certified Senior Industrial Analyst, Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center (IEK)
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.

Vice President
Biography

Engineer, Clean Energy Analysis Center
Biography

CEO
After serving as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Baghdad during “The Surge,” Jeremy McCool made a personal pledge to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign and fossil fuels. Upon exiting the military, Jeremy entered Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and completed his master degree with a focus in urban policy and sustainability. During his final year at Columbia, Jeremy founded HEVO in November 2011, with the vision and mission of accelerating electric vehicle adoption. Mr. McCool is a founding member of the Brooklyn Chamber Veteran Business Affairs Council. He also teaches Clean Energy Entrepreneurship as part of the NYU Cleanstart program and Veteran Entrepreneurship as part of the Bunker Labs program.

Professor, Director, NanoEngineering & Energy Center
Dr. Y. Shirley Meng received her PhD in Advance Materials for Micro & Nano Systems from the Singapore-MIT Alliance in 2005, after which she worked as a postdoc research fellow and became a research scientist at MIT. Shirley currently holds the Zable Chair Professor in Energy Technologies and professor in NanoEngineering at University of California San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Meng’s research focuses on the direct integration of experimental techniques with first principles computation modeling for developing new materials and architectures for electrochemical energy storage. She is the founding Director of Sustainable Power and Energy Center (SPEC), consisting faculty members from interdisciplinary fields, who all focus on making breakthroughs in distributed energy generation, storage and the accompanying integration-management systems. Dr. Meng is the principle investigator of the research group - Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC). She received several prestigious awards, including C.W. Tobias Young Investigator Award of the Electrochemical Society, BASF Volkswagen Electrochemistry Science Award, Frontier of Innovation Award and NSF CAREER Award. Dr. Meng is the author and co-author of more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles, one book chapter and four patents. Web: LESC http://smeng.ucsd.edu/ and SPEC http://spec.ucsd.edu

Professor and Chair, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Biography

Partner, Energy and Project Finance Group
Dirk Michels, a partner in the Energy and Project Finance Group of Ballard Spahr and is one of the leading energy technology and renewable energy attorneys in California. He represents energy technology and renewable energy companies in major corporate and project financing transactions within the United States and abroad. During a 20-year career practicing law in California and Germany, he has advised publicly traded and privately held clients in venture funding, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and project financing transactions worth billions of dollars. A recognized leader in the domestic distributed solar energy industry, Mr. Michels has been at the forefront of representing solar, wind, and energy storage projects involving collaboration between U.S., Australian, Canadian, Chinese, and German companies.

Senior Manager, Energy Storage Strategy and Research
Ted Miller is Ford's Senior Manager of Energy Storage Strategy and Research. His team is responsible for energy storage strategy and research for Ford vehicles globally. They are involved in every aspect of energy storage design and use from raw materials to end-of-life recycling and second use. His team also collaborates in energy storage research with university, industrial, and National Lab partners. Mr. Miller is a member of the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) Management Committee. He is a member of several strategic and external advisory boards, including Idaho National Lab, the University of Michigan Energy Institute, Cobalt 27, and the Energy Frontier Research Center for Sodium Based Energy Storage.

Senior Vice President
1981: Graduated from the Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, the University of Tohoku 1981: Joined the Nissan Research Center
1997: Office manager of the Nissan Engineering and Vehicle Development Office
2005: General Manager of the Nissan HEV Development Division
2006: Division manager of the Nissan EV Energy Development Division
2007~2014: Engineering Director of Nissan EV Energy Development Division
April 2015~: Senior vice president of B3 Corporation

Biography

Program Manager
Boris Monahov is Program Manager of the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC) – the largest international research organization focused on advanced lead-acid (and lead-carbon) batteries. The ALABC is a program of the International Lead Association (ILA) in London. The Consortium has over 70 members worldwide - lead producers, battery manufacturers, suppliers to the industry and research institutions. The Program usually comprises basic science research, technology development or battery demonstration projects. The project results are first used by the members of the Consortium, some are published and become available to the entire industry. Boris is responsible for planning, coordinating and information management. Boris Monahov has 37 years in lead batteries. He holds a master’s degree in solid state physics from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and a PhD degree in electrochemistry from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where he had his post doc training and habilitation as Associate Professor. His experience comprises 25 years of basic electrochemical and battery research (lead-acid, the team of Prof. D. Pavlov), followed by 6 years in the industry as Chief Electrochemist of Firefly Energy Inc., USA, developing lead-carbon foam batteries. Since 2010 he is Program manager of the ALABC. He has published over 60 articles (over 500 citations), and 3 patents. Boris is an active member of the Electrochemical Society. In 2012, he was awarded by EPLS’s award for outstanding technical contributions by an individual to the lead-acid battery industry. In 2014, he received the Gaston Plante medal of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences for fundamental contributions to the lead-acid battery science and technology.

Managing Director
Simon Moores is managing director of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, an online publishing and consultancy business specialising in critical minerals and metals, disruptive technology and emerging markets. Moores has also worked as business journalist focusing on non-metallic minerals such as lithium, graphite, rare earths, potash, TiO2 pigment and feedstocks (rutile, ilmenite).

Professor, Chemistry and Physics
Mark Obrovac received his B.Sc. in Chemical Physics from Simon Fraser University in 1995, a PhD in Physics in 2001 and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemistry at Cornell University. In 2002 he joined 3M Company where he worked for 8 years as Principal Investigator for Li-ion battery Si alloy anode research, development and manufacturing. In 2010 Mark joined Dalhousie University, and is currently Professor of Chemistry and Physics, and 3M Canada/NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Metal-Ion Batteries.

Managing Editor
Barbara O’Donovan has almost 10 years of experience in commodity news and price reporting. Barbara started working with Industrial Minerals in 2015 before taking over as Managing Editor in June 2016. She is responsible for publishing IM’s online, newsletter and magazine content from a global team of reporters. Prior to joining Industrial Minerals Barbara worked as editor of American Metal Market in New York and deputy editor of Metal Bulletin in London. Most recently Barbara has been working across the Metal Bulletin Group’s suite of products (including Industrial Minerals, Metal Bulletin and American Metal Market) on internal processes and systems aimed at establishing the Group’s strong credentials as a global Price Reporting Agency through the assessment and audit of our pricing methodologies for adherence to the principles for price reporting set out by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). Barbara holds an M.A. in International Journalism and a B.A. in Economics and French.

COO, Bait Manganese (PT Bhakti Alam Indonesia Timur); CEO, Stern PT
Mr. Raymond Malcolm Oei leads PT STERN as current acting CEO and has 16 years of experience in Indonesia with a background as Advisor of City Bank group and other previously experience in various Industries to ensure the success of STERN.

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.

Founder and CTO
Dr. Park leads Enevate’s battery R&D efforts and is an expert in surface and bulk chemistries, novel battery manufacturing, materials screening and development, and chemistry. Ben has authored over 25 publications and holds a PhD from University of California, Irvine, MSEE from Purdue University, and BSEE from Seoul National University.

CTO, BTC Power; Founder, Auto Motive Power, Inc.
Anil has 21 years of electric vehicle experience. He specializes in developing software for battery charging and controls. Before joining BTCPower, he led Tesla Motors and Aerovironment's battery management and charging systems for commercial vehicles and military applications. Prior to that he was Senior Engineer and Battery Test Leader at Honda R&D Americas. He has a BSEE of California State Polytechnic University, where he was a member of their Solar Car and Hybrid Electric Vehicle programs.

Manager, Energy Storage Group, Transportation and Hydrogen System Center
Dr. Pesaran holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of California, Los Angeles. He has worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory since 1983 on various energy efficiency technologies in building, advanced air conditioning, and automotive batteries. Dr. Pesaran started working on batteries, hybrid electric, and fuel cell vehicles in 1995, collaborating with car and battery manufacturers on battery thermal analysis and battery pack thermal management issues as part of the US Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Programs. He currently leads several projects for Department of Energy and industrial partners, which include thermal characterization and analysis of batteries, modeling and simulation of batteries and ultracapacitors, use for hybrid and plug-in vehicles, and battery secondary use. He is an active member of the FreedomCAR Electrochemical Energy Storage Technical Team and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers and American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Professor
Dr. Slobodan Petrovic is a Professor of Electrical and Renewable Energy Engineering at Oregon Institute of Technology and a Chief Technology Officer for Xnrgi. Dr. Petrovic has over 30 years of experience in various areas of science and technology, and diverse background from large and small industry, government research labs, and academia. He has published, presented and patented over 100 works in these fields. His current interest is in materials for energy storage devices, MEMS fuel cells, dye-sensitized solar cells, investigation of carrier lifetime in solar cells, portable fuel cells, battery charging techniques, hydrogen production and storage, silicon-based anodes for Li Ion batteries, Li air cells, water purification methods, remote sensing for smart grid, and low-cost technology for developing countries. Previously, Dr. Petrovic was a professor at Arizona State University, Vice President of Engineering for a stationary power fuel cell company, a Director of Systems Integration for a portable fuel cell company, and a Member of the Technical Staff for Motorola, Inc. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Belgrade in his native Serbia and his PhD from the Technical University of Dresden in Germany. Dr. Petrovic is also Founder and President of a non-profit organization, Solar Hope, dedicated to helping developing countries through use of renewable energy. With his team, he has accomplished over 120 solar PV installations, with battery storage, in developing countries.

Battery Survey Manager
Christophe has built up considerable expertise in the area of battery market. He joined AVICENNE 22 years ago and Spend 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.

Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor Plett received his M.S.E.E. and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1992 and 1998, respectively. He is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. His research focuses on control-systems theory as applied to the management of high-capacity battery systems, such as found in hybrid and electric vehicles. Current research efforts include: physics-based reduced-order modeling of ideal lithium-ion dynamics; system identification of physics-based model parameters using only current-voltage input-output data; physics-based reduced-order modeling of degradation mechanisms in electrochemical cells; estimation of cell internal state and degradation state; state-of-charge, state-of-health and state-of-life estimation; power and energy prediction; and battery pack fast charging.

Co-Founder and Managing Partner
Joshua Posamentier is Managing Partner and co-founder of Congruent Ventures, an early stage venture firm that backs companies in the sustainable technology ecosystem. He is currently on the board of Sense Photonics and serves as observer to PolySpectra and Energetic Insurance. Prior to co-founding Congruent Ventures, Joshua was with Prelude Ventures where he helped build its current portfolio including Alveo Energy, Aquion Energy, Heliotrope Technologies, Pivot Bio, QuantumScape, Renew Financial, Ripple Foods, Sense, Solarbridge Technology (Acquired by SunPower), and Yerdle. Joshua has over 50 patents issued or pending and holds a BA in physics from the University California at Berkeley and MBAs from the Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Battery Manger, Battery Benchmarking Program
2002 - 2008, 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.

President & CEO
Bob has over 33 years of technology and leadership experience. He previously held a number of key executive and technical positions in the mobile and wireless industry, most recently as executive vice president and general manager of Broadcom’s Mobile and Wireless Group. Bob held various senior management positions at Broadcom from 2002 to 2014 in the Network Infrastructure, Wireless Connectivity, and Mobile and Wireless groups. Prior to that, Bob held vice president and general manager roles at Lucent Microelectronics, a networking communications company, and Agere Systems, a semiconductor manufacturer, in its Optical Access, New Business Initiatives, and Modem/Multimedia Divisions. Previously, he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories for over ten years. Bob is a board member at multiple public companies. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from State University of New York at Stony Brook and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University.

President
As president of Hazmat Safety Consulting, Bob provides dangerous goods regulatory assistance to customers worldwide by drawing on his vast experience, knowledge of the hazardous materials (dangerous goods) regulations and extensive network of dangerous goods professionals worldwide. From 2006-2010, Bob served as the deputy associate administrator for Hazardous Materials Safety with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) at the U.S. Department of Transportation, where he was responsible for directing approximately 150 hazardous materials transportation specialists and the day-to-day operation of the U.S. Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Program, including overseeing the regulatory development, technical review and classification, international standards, outreach, special permits and approvals and enforcement offices. In this position, Bob was involved in the development of domestic and international regulations and gained not only an understanding of the regulations, but the intent and meaning behind the words. Bob has been involved in the development and implementation of hazardous materials safety regulations for more than 28 years and has been responsible for a broad range of domestic and international hazardous materials safety efforts. Bob served as the chairman of the United Nations Sub-Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods that has responsibility for publishing the United Nations Model Regulations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods. Bob also served as the chairman and vice chairman of the ICAO Dangerous Goods Panel which has responsibility for developing and publishing the International Civil Aviation Regulations which govern the transport of dangerous goods by air. Bob was the Panel member nominated by the United States to the ICAO Dangerous Goods Panel for a number of years. He also led US delegations to the International Maritime Organization Dangerous Goods, Solid Cargoes and Containers Sub-Committee and coordinated with the US Coast Guard in developing technical proposals and responding to sea transport incidents involving hazardous materials. He played a major role in developing the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code into the revised format that exists today. Since leaving the government for private practice, Bob draws on his vast experience to provide guidance and consulting services to clients ranging from major international corporations to small businesses. He has assisted numerous clients with bringing their operations into compliance. Bob has conducted compliance audits, assisted clients with classifying their hazardous materials, interpreted regulatory requirements, developed training programs and operations manuals and assisted clients with navigating the complexities of the domestic and international transport regulations. Bob is the executive director of the Medical Device Battery Transport Council. The MDBTC was formed to promote the safe transport of lithium batteries and battery-powered medical devices. The MDBTC agrees with regulators that safety of both passengers and crew is of the utmost importance, and to that point, is supportive of rules that enhance safety for all parties involved in air transport. Further, the MDBTC shares a common bond with regulatory groups in that each member company has a strong interest in seeing that their lithium battery shipments arrive at the destination safely. This council aims to work with regulators to identify risk reduction opportunities while also mitigating the impacts of overly burdensome regulations that have an adverse effect on the efficient transportation of life-saving products worldwide.

Senior R&D Engineer, Energy
Dr. Schrooten is a Senior Research and Development Engineer at Pyrotek Inc. with more than 15 years of experience in developing new material processing techniques for various fuel cells and battery chemistries. He is the technical lead for Pyrotek’s battery-grade graphite development activities and manages Pyrotek’s battery materials research and development laboratory. He holds two Bachelors of Science degrees, one in chemistry and one in ceramic engineering, and a PhD in materials engineering all from Iowa State University.

Vice President, Advanced Technologies, Engineering
Dr. Paul B. Scott, TransPower VP for Advanced Technologies, received degrees through D. Sc. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served on the professorial staffs of MIT and University of Southern California. Dr. Scott has served as a consultant to many corporations, contributed to the patent literature related to solar energy, x-ray imaging, isotope separation and gaseous fueled vehicles, and has published on diverse topics In recent years he has led in the development of hydrogen fueled buses, solar and wind driven hydrogen generation stations and recently focuses on advanced development programs including batteries and Zero Emission Heavy Duty vehicles.

Product Planning Team
Biography

Executive Director
Since TTC was formed 26 years ago, Jeff Serfass has been leading collaborative efforts to create industries and address both commercialization opportunities and barriers to market development for clean and renewable energy companies. For 22 years, Jeff was the founding President of the National Hydrogen Association (NHA). He continues to serve as and the President of the Hydrogen Education Foundation (HEF) and Senior Advisor to the Biomass Thermal Energy Council (BTEC). Beginning in January 2012, Mr. Serfass has been serving as the Executive Director of the California Hydrogen Business Council. Jeff served as the founding Executive Director of the Fuel Cell Commercialization Group (11 years) , the Utility Biomass Energy Commercialization Association (3 years), and the Utility PhotoVoltaic Group (now the Solar Electric Power Association) (11 years). He led the exploratory workshops and relationship building that led to formation of each of these organizations, and then went on to manage them through start-up, development and strategic transition phases. He also served as the Executive Director of the U.S. Advanced Ceramics Association (5 years). Jeff has experience in public policies related to electric system regulation and issues and in the commercialization of new technologies important to power system management. He has assisted the Electric Power Research Institute in facilitating the development of standard energy storage functional requirements and megawatt-scale battery energy storage demonstrations and has developed collaborative research efforts in creation of smart grid technologies. Jeff has been named recently to the Schatz Energy Research Center's Advisory Board. He served on the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Agriculture Biomass R&D Technical Advisory Committee (2006-2008) and served as the Chairman of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Energy Conversion Initiative Advisory Committee (2006-2011). He created and managed for several years the advisory council for the Sacramento Utility District’s renewable generation research program funded by the California Energy Commission. He is currently part of the team developing Total Energy USA in Houston, Texas. Previous roles include positions with the U.S. Department of Energy and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Jeff holds B.S. and M.E. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Head, Market Research
Denis Sharypin has a degree (with honors) from Moscow State University and Graduate school of Toyo University (Japan). Denis has worked for Norilsk Nickel for 7 years and currently stands as the Head of Market research. His responsibilities include: supervision of the Nickel, Copper and precious metals market research. Denis also covers metal price forecasting for budgeting and strategic planning alongside strategic marketing. Outside of Norilsk, Denis is the Chairman of International Nickel Statistics Committee, Representative director at the Nickel Institute and a representative member of the International Platinum Group Metal Association.

Vice President Product Development
Biography

TITLE
Biography

President
Dr. Sloop founded OnTo Technology in 2004 to host the LG/Apple battery recall and develop direct recycling technologies. Since then, he has performed contract research with industrial partners and the federal government to apply direct recycling technologies to the various lithium-ion battery technologies important for the EV and storage market. Sloop received his BS from Willamette University and PhD from Oregon State University in inorganic chemistry with Professor Michael Lerner. Dr. Sloop was a Postdoctoral Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Dr. John B. Kerr’s group developing polymer electrolytes and diagnostic techniques to understand capacity fade in lithium-ion batteries.

Senior Engineer, Emerging Technologies, Grid Technology and Modernization
Biography

Senior Engineer, Energy Storage
Dr. Kandler Smith is a senior researcher with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory where he leads projects in computational modeling of batteries, lifetime prediction and enhancement, system design and real-time control. Together with other NREL group members, Dr. Smith recently co-authored a book on large battery system design and integration and regularly publishes in those areas.

Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy
Dr. Daniel Sperling is Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, and founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis (ITS-Davis). He holds the transportation seat on the California Air Resources Board. He has authored or co-authored over 250 technical papers and 13 books, including: Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future (Island Press, 2018), is widely cited in leading newspapers, been interviewed many times on NPR radio, including Science Friday, Talk of the Nation and Fresh Air, and in 2009 was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

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.

Director, Center for Collaborative Energy Storage Science
Venkat Srinivasan is the director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS) and deputy director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR). ACCESS provides the vision and coordinates the energy storage programs at Argonne and serves as a point of entry for industry to take advantage of the unique capabilities and facilities at Argonne to solve their problems in energy storage. JCESR is a national program led by Argonne that focuses on next-generation energy storage research that goes beyond lithium-ion technology. He is a former staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research interest is in developing next-generation batteries for use in vehicle and grid applications, among other things. Dr. Srinivasan and his research group develop continuum-based models for battery materials and combine them with experimental characterization to help design new materials, electrodes, and devices. In addition to his research, Dr. Srinivasan is interested in moving technologies to market and has been exploring ways to develop an ecosystem, focused on batteries, to accelerate technology commercialization. In this role, Dr. Srinivasan conceived the idea of CalCharge, a one-of-a-kind public-private partnership in energy storage. Dr. Srinivasan has previously served as the technical manager of the Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies (BATT) Program, as the acting director of the BATT program, as department head of the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources (ESDR) department at LBNL, and the interim director of the ESDR Division at LBNL. Dr. Srinivasan joined the scientific staff at LBNL in 2003 after postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley and Pennsylvania State University. He received his PhD from the University of South Carolina in 2000. He is also the author of a popular battery blog titled, "This Week in Batteries."

CTO
I joined TIAX in 2002 and continued on with CAMX Power. Currently, I head the continued development of CAM-7 including its next-generation versions, as well as our advanced materials. I also work on our technology and IP strategies and pursuits. I am one of the inventors of the next generation core patents. My formal training was in Chemical Engineering with a B. Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology, MS from University of Wyoming and PhD (1999) from University of Washington. During the initial years of TIAX, I worked on SOFCs, PEMFCs, and automotive after-treatment systems. Since 2005, I have been focused on the development of our materials (including our cathode materials), safety and cell technologies, providing both technical and management leadership.

Managing Director
Bic is a Managing Director of Hamilton Clark, a FINRA-member investment bank that assists public and private companies with corporate finance advice, raising capital, project financing, completing a merger, acquisition or sale transaction. Prior to joining HamiltonClark, Bic was the Founder and Principal of Stevens Capital Advisors, an energy and advanced technologies investment banking and advisory firm. Bic has over 30 years of venture capital, investment banking, and business development experience and has served on the boards of directors of 28 early stage technology companies. Bic has a B.I.E. degree from Georgia Tech and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

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.

Technical Specialist, Battery System Development
Biography

Chief Engineer, EV Development
Biography

Senior Director, Licensing and Strategy
Erik Terjesen is Senior Director of Licensing and Strategy for Ionic Materials. In this role, he is responsible engaging with key partners for the commercialization of Ionic’s novel solid polymer technology in battery applications. He joined Ionic from Qualcomm, where he held several key roles in licensing, strategy and M&A functions. While there he spearheaded the Halo program, which commercialized wireless charging technology for the electric vehicle market through an array of OEM and Tier 1 customers. Erik began his career in the venture capital and investment banking sectors with HarbourVest Partners and Robertson Stephens. Erik received his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his BA from Harvard University.

Director, Operations
Ezana Tesfu has been working in the fast pace innovation industry in Silicon Valley and couple year ago he entered the connected car world at CarVi. CarVi is a Silicon Valley technology company, was started by trailblazing driver assist engineers whose goal was to make top-of-the-line driving safety features available to everyone. CarVi offers the latest generation of telematics for auto insurance and fleets, based on image recognition and Machine Learning tools. Unlike the old Telematics technologies, they use a new way to understand driver behavior.

Function Owner, Traction Battery Control
Biography

Safety/LED ATE Sales Manager
Jorel Townsend is an Electrical Safety Automated Test Equipment Sales Manager for Chroma Systems Solutions who works with many industries such as Battery, Electric Vehicles, LED, Medical, and many other electronic manufacturers in order to provide guidance and solutions in order to ensure product and operator safety.

Assistant Professor, College of Engineering & Applied Sciences
Professor Trimboli’s research focuses on development of control strategies for the management of high-capacity battery systems such as found in electric vehicles. He is currently UCCS principal investigator (PI) of a multi-year program with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) headed by Utah State University where he leads a team investigating the application of model-predictive control to improve the performance and extend the lifetime of lithium ion battery cells. He is also co-PI of an on-going battery modeling and control project with a major automotive company.

Vice President, Rechargeable Battery Materials Business Unit
Biography

Director, Chemical and Materials Systems Laboratory
Mark Verbrugge is the Director of GM’s Chemical and Materials Systems Laboratory, which maintains global research programs—enabled by the disciplines of chemistry, physics, and materials science—and targets the advanced development of structural subsystems, energy storage and conversion devices, and various technologies associated with fuels, lubricants, and emissions. Mark is a Board Member of the United States Automotive Materials Partnership LLC and the United States Advanced Battery Consortium LLC. Mark has received a number of GM internal awards as well as external awards including the Norman Hackerman Young Author Award and the Energy Technology Award from the Electrochemical Society, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Council for Automotive Research, and a 2017 R&D 100 Award. Mark is a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

CEO & CTO
Steven Visco is the Chief Executive Officer, CTO, and founder of PolyPlus Battery Company in Berkeley, California, as well as a Guest Scientist in the Materials Science Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Steven J. Visco currently holds 114 U.S. patents, more than 200 international patents and has authored over 70 journal articles, as well as books, monographs and other publications. Dr. Visco graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts in 1977 and received his PhD in Physical Chemistry from Brown University in 1982. Dr. Visco then joined the staff at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a Principal Investigator in the Materials Sciences Division in 1984 where his research interests have included advanced batteries and fuel cells. Steven Visco co-founded PolyPlus Battery Company in 1991. In 2013 Dr. Visco was selected by the City of Berkeley for a “Visionary Award” for his work in next generation batteries. Steve also serves on the Technical Advisory the CIC Energigune Institute in Miñano, Spain and was awarded the 2011 International Battery Association Award for “Outstanding Contributions to the Development of Lithium-Air and Lithium-Water Batteries.” PolyPlus Battery Company was selected by TIME magazine for its 50 Best Inventions of 2011 Issue, and was selected for a Gold Edison Award in 2012. In May 2015 Dr. Visco was elected a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.

CMO
Dr John T. Warner, DM, PMP is an experienced sales, product management and strategic marketing executive with more than 25 years in the automotive and battery industries. As Chief Sales & Marketing Officer for Ener1/EnerDel, Dr Warner has global responsibility for both sales and marketing activities. In his previous roles, Dr Warner served as VP of Sales & Marketing for XALT Energy; Director of Sales & Marketing for Magna Steyr Battery Systems NA; Director of Product Management for Boston-Power and held multiple management roles over his 13 years at General Motors. He received his Doctor of Management, Organizational Leadership degree from the University of Phoenix, and his MBA, International Business and Leadership Studies and BA in Industrial Management from Baker College. Dr Warner also serves as the President for the international trade group NAATBatt International. In 2015 Dr Warner published his book, “The Handbook of Lithium-Ion Battery Pack Design”.

President
David graduated as an Applied Scientist some years ago now, and has been involved with the metal mining industry for thirty-eight 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.

President
Steve Weiss is the founder of Xilectric, an energy storage start-up founded in 2012 under funding from ARPA-E. Over the past 15 years, Steve has been principal investigator or a lead contributor on several DARPA programs, an ARPA-E program, and has managed several other large R&D programs. Steve has also worked in corporate venture where responsibilities included providing technical due diligence, directing internal investments, performing business screens, and supporting execution of key corporate initiatives. During the ARPA-E program, Steve pioneered a new framework for considering nonaqueous acidity and invented a new reference electrode. This work lead to the development of our new class of Li-ion additives used to improve the abuse tolerance of Li-ion batteries.

Chair, Applied Material Science for Energy Conversion and Storage, MEET Battery, Research Center, Institute of Physical Chemistry
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.

Staff Researcher, Global R&D Center
Biography

Senior Research Chemist & Project Lead
Biography

Global Commercial Manager, New Product and Technology Development
As Global Commercial Manager for New Products and Technology Development at FMC Corporation, Marina Yakovleva’s role is to implement FMC’s new strategic inventions through industry and academia collaborations to enable high energy density storage devices. Marina started her carrier in battery components industry in 1995 and today her expertise in technology and market covers lithium battery supply chain from lithium extractions to future energy storage devices. Marina has inventions in lithium-ion battery materials widely used commercially, including the Ti/Mg tailored cathode technology that has become the industry standard and is used in a vast majority of consumer electronics devices. Marina is member-at-large of the ECS Battery Division and member of the advisory board for the EU HELIS consortium.

Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering
Gleb Yushin is a Professor of the School of Materials and Engineering at The Georgia Institute of Technology. He joined MSE in July 2007 and has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Roland B. Snow Award from the American Ceramic Society, NASA Nano 50 Award, various best poster awards from the Electrochemical Society, Materials Research Society, and North American Membrane Society meetings, and multiple awards at ceramographic competitions. His recent work was featured on the cover of Nano Letters and was covered by Nature, Science, Advanced Functional Materials, Innovation Philadelphia Newsletter, Philadelphia Business Journal, and Frost & Sullivan, among others. Dr. Yushin received a M.S. in Physics from Saint-Petersburg Technical University (Russia) and a PhD in Materials Science from North Carolina State University. Upon graduation in fall 2003 he joined Drexel University as a postdoctoral associate and soon was promoted to a research assistant professor position. At Drexel, Gleb has been leading the research efforts in nanoporous carbide derived carbon - based materials and devices for energy, environment and bio-related applications.

Senior Technical Executive Officer, Asahi Sasei Separator; Senior Technical Advisor, BYD EDV Batteries, China
Zhengming (John) Zhang is Vice President of New Technology at Celgard LLC in Charlotte, NC. He has been working in Solid State Ionics, Batteries, and Battery Separators since 1984. He has published more than 50 papers and patents and has co-edited a book on battery. He has been an invited speaker for many professional conferences, invited lecturer for United Nations Development Program, and is a Visiting Professor at Xiamen University, Fujian, China. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Shanghai University, Shanghai, China, an M.S. in Electrochemistry from Shandong University, Jinan City, China, and a PhD in Materials Chemistry from the University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA.