Prof. Chibueze Amanchukwu – University of Chicago

Chibueze Amanchukwu is a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. His research involves the design, synthesis, and understanding of ion transport in electrolytes and the development of AI/data science tools for batteries and electrocatalytic applications.

He obtained his PhD in chemical engineering as a NDSEG Fellow at MIT and was a TomKat Center Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University.

Relevant Press and Publications

• The Electrolyte Frontier; A Manifesto (Joule)
• Understanding the Chemical Stability of Polymers for Lithium–Air Batteries (Chemistry of Materials)
• CDAC Summer Lab. Applied Data Science (UChicago Data & Computing Summer Lab)

Prof. Evan Reed – Stanford University

Evan Reed is Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. His group focuses on theory and modeling of nanoscale materials for electronics and energy applications, and materials at conditions of extreme temperatures, pressures, and fields, and he is credited with publishing some of the first work in battery materials informatics.

Prof Reed holds a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT and a B.S. in Applied Physics from Caltech. He was an E. O. Lawrence Fellow and staff scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before moving to Stanford in 2010.

Relevant Press and Publications

• Holistic computational structure screening of more than 12000 candidates for solid lithium-ion conductor materials (Energy and Environmental Science)
• Discovery of materials with extreme work functions by high-throughput density functional theory and machine learning (arXiv)
• Revealing the Spectrum of Unknown Layered Materials with Superhuman Predictive Abilities (Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters)

Prof. Qian Yang – University of Connecticut

Qian Yang is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science & Engineering Department at the University of Connecticut. Her research lies at the intersection of computational science and the physical sciences, with an emphasis on machine learning for materials, physics, and chemistry applications.

She completed her Ph.D. from the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering at Stanford University, and holds a B.A. in applied mathematics with computer science focus from Harvard College.

Relevant Press and Publications

• Learning reduced kinetic Monte Carlo models of complex chemistry from molecular dynamics (Chemical Science)
• L1 Regularization-Based Model Reduction of Complex Chemistry Molecular Dynamics for Statistical Learning of Kinetic Monte Carlo Models (MRS Advances)
• CSE Professor Qian Yang Awarded Grants to Optimize 3D Printing Methods (UCONN)

Prof. Yuzhang Li – UCLA

Yuzhang Li is an Assistant Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA. Prof. Li has pioneered both engineering solutions and advanced diagnostic tools to make breakthroughs in next-generation batteries.

The synergy between these two broad research thrusts will bring practical applications in the short-term, while revealing new foundations to build long-term solutions. He obtained his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering as an NSF Fellow at Stanford.

Relevant Press and Publications

• Looking cool (Nature Energy)
• Atomic structure of sensitive battery materials and interfaces revealed by cryo–electron microscopy (Science)
• Growth of conformal graphene cages on micrometre-sized silicon particles as stable battery anodes (Nature Energy)

Dr. Joel Moxley – Echelon

Moxley is the co-founder of Foro Energy and Rho AI, and he is a founding investor and board member of Rubicon, Zero Mass Water, Pie Insurance, and Fervo Energy. Moxley is an angel investor in more than 30 early-stage technology companies, including Biota Technology. He actively invests from a small institutional fund into pre-seed, seed, and Series A financing rounds, and is a member of the investment team at Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Joel Moxley is a Precourt Energy Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. He received his Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University, and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

Relevant Press and Publications

• MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35
• Stanford’s Climate-Tech Startup Factory: 4 years, 25 new companies, $47.6M raised, 124 new jobs (Medium)
• Engineering Yeast Transcription Machinery for Improved Ethanol Tolerance and Production (Science

Kerri Faber – Echelon

Kerri Faber is an entrepreneur and leader with 20 years of operational leadership including a diverse set of organizational best practices with established growth playbooks for companies ranging from early stage start-ups to large institutional organizations. Kerri currently serves as the CEO of Echelon, Co-founder and CEO of Larkly (Echelon Commerce) and Director of the State Bank of Wyoming Holding Company; formerly she held positions as President of Rho AI, Vice President at Rubicon, Fiserv and General Electric where she led the largest integration in GE’s history. She is a central advisor to Aionics on growth strategy and people management.