Charles W. Tobias Young Investigator Award
Betar Gallant
Monday, 0920h / Room 316B (Level 3, Hawaii Convention Center)
“Lithium Oxide Content in the Li Metal Anode Solid Electrolyte Interphase Drives High Coulombic Efficiency“
by Betar Gallant
BETAR M. GALLANT is Associate Professor and Class of ‘22 Career Development Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she leads the Energy and Carbon Conversion Laboratory. Her research group focuses on advanced battery chemistries and materials for high-energy primary and rechargeable batteries, including fluorinated cathode conversion reactions and lithium, sodium, and calcium metal anodes and their interfaces. The group leads research into CO2 capture and its integration with direct electrochemical conversion in the captured state. Dr. Gallant obtained her SB, SM, and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at MIT, followed by a Kavli Nanoscience Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. She received multiple awards including the MIT Bose Fellowship, Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, Scialog Fellow in Energy Storage and Negative Emissions Science, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, ECS Battery Division Early Career Award, ECS Toyota Young Investigator Award, ACS Energy and Fuels Division Glenn Award, and MIT Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching. Dr. Gallant joined ECS in 2012.
Edward Goodrich Acheson Award
Paul Kohl
Tuesday, 1400h / Room 313C (Level 3, Hawaii Convention Center)
“Improvements in Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis Materials and Devices“
by Paul Kohl
PAUL KOHL is a Regents’ Professor and holds the Thomas L. Gossage Chair at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include electrochemical devices for energy storage and conversion, new ion-conducting polymers electrolytes, and advanced polymer dielectrics for electronic devices. He received a PhD in Chemistry from The University of Texas in 1978 with Allen J. Bard as advisor. He was employed at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1978-1989, where he participated in the development of new chemical processes for the manufacture of electronic devices. In 1989, he joined Georgia Tech’s faculty in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He is the author of 340 journal publications, 69 US patents, and more than 500 conference presentations. Dr. Kohl is past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society; and founding editor of Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters and ECS Interface. An ECS member since 1975, Prof. Kohl served as the Society’s President from 2014-2015. ECS honored Prof. Kohl with the 1977 Edward G. Weston Fellowship, 2001 Carl Wagner Memorial Award, 2017 Gordon E. Moore Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Science & Technology, and 2008 Dielectric Science and Technology Division Thomas D. Callinan Award. He also received the American Chemical Society ACS Award in Polymer Science and is a Fellow of The Electrochemical Society and AIChE.
2023-2024 ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship
Yuzhang Li
Wednesday, 0840h | Room 316 A (Level 3, Hawaii Convention Center)
“Ultrafast Electrodeposition of Faceted Li Metal“
by Yuzhang Li
YUZHANG LI is an Assistant Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His research focuses on renewable energy generation and storage, nanomaterials design and synthesis, cryogenic-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM), and in situ transmission electron microscopy.
Through the ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship, Prof. Li builds on the proven track record for Cryo-EM technique building and analysis, and uses electron microscopy as a powerful tool to study battery materials (Li, Li SEI, and others). Li metal easily melts and evaporates by the electron beam; other materials degrade, too. Cryo-EM allows the non-destructive study of Li, SEI, Lix, Sn, graphite, S, and their interphases. The ultimate target is anode-less lithium metal anodes.
After completing his BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 2013, he received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University in 2018 under the supervision of ECS Fellow Yi Cui. He pursued a postdoc under Robert Sinclair at Stanford, then joined the faculty of UCLA in 2020. He is the author of 56 articles with an h-index of 42 and holds three patents. His research has been supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Research Award (2022), NSF CAREER Award (2022), American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Grant (2022), Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2018-2020), and NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2013-2016). Awards received include the 2018 ECS San Francisco Section Daniel Cubicciotti Student Award and 2017 Materials Research Society Graduate Student Award. Forbes included him in the 2021 “30 Under 30” young innovators list. Dr. Li became a member of ECS in January 2022.
