People at LESC

Email: mchouchane at uchicago.edu

Mehdi received his Ph.D. in France from the University of Picardy Jules Verne (UPJV), at the Laboratory of Reactivity and Chemistry of Solids (LRCS) in 2021 under the supervision of Pr. Alejandro A. Franco. His work focused on the 3-D modeling of lithium-ion batteries at the electrode scale, to predict and optimize their performance. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher from the University of Chicago at the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC) under Prof. Shirley Meng’s supervision. His current research interest is to combine experimental and modeling approaches to improve positive electrodes or to optimize all-solid-state batteries.

Email: xiw128@eng.ucsd.edu

Xiaowei received his M.Sc from Department of Chemistry, Fudan University in 2016 and Ph.D. from NUS Graduate School under the Integrative Sciences and Engineering programme, National University of Singapore in 2021. His M.Sc work spanned Li-ion cathode materials, Na-ion anode materials and Zn-ion electrode materials and devices. His Ph.D. work focuses on the synthesis and characterizations of organic redox-active materials for batteries. He was a research fellow at IMRE, A-STAR, where he was involved with the research on secondary life of Li-ion battery and the interfacial protection of NASICON-structured solid-state electrolytes.  His current research interest is on the development in high-energy Li-S batteries.

Email: jao002@eng.ucsd.edu

Sam received his Ph.D. from National University of Singapore’s NUS Graduate School under the Integrative Sciences and Engineering programme in 2021. His Ph.D. work focused on NASICON structured solid-state electrolyte and the electrode/electrolyte interfaces. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC) under Prof. Shirley Meng’s supervision. His current research interest is on the development in the all-solid-state batteries.

Email: k4qian@ucsd.edu

Kun received his Ph.D. in Materials Science from Tsinghua University, China (2019). Then, he worked on the research of electrolyte structure with Small-angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS). He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in LESC and he is dedicated to designing and diagnosing the bulk and interface of energy storage materials in electrochemical systems by integrating electrochemical analysis and in-situ/operando characterizations based on X-ray, Raman, Neutron etc.

Email: longuyen@eng.ucsd.edu

Long received his B.S. in Chemistry from University of Science – Vietnam National University in 2014. He then joined the Erasmus Mundus M.E.S.C. (Materials for Energy Storage and Conversion) Master program, where he had his formation at Aix-Marseille University (France), Warsaw University of Technology (Poland), University of Picardie Jules-Verne (France), and University of Cambridge (UK). He graduated from University of Bordeaux with a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry in 2019. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC), working on the development of Na-ion batteries using conventional liquid electrolytes or solid-state electrolytes.

Email: b3han@ucsd.edu

Bing obtained his B.S. and Master in School of Physics & Telecommunication Engineering from South China Normal University in 2014 and 2017 respectively. He then graduated from the Peking University with a Ph.D. degree in Mechanics in 2021. His Ph.D. work was focused on analyzing alkali battery by Cryo-TEM/Cryo-STEM-EELS. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at LESC under Prof. Shirley Meng’s supervision. His current research is focused on analyzing the interface of Li-Metal-Based All-Solid-State Batteries through Cryo-TEM/Cryo-STEM-EELS.

Email: g9zhu@ucsd.edu

Personal website: https://sites.google.com/view/guominzhu/home?authuser=0

Guomin obtained his master’s degree at Zhejiang University working on developing in situ Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) tools to understand material structure-property relationships. He then graduated from the University of Washington with a Ph.D. degree in Material Science and Engineering in 2020. His Ph.D. work was focused on understanding the crystallization mechanism of mesocrystal. His current interest is to pursue fundamental insights on battery science through the lens of TEM and crystallization.

Email : jijang@eng.ucsd.edu

Jihyun obtained his B.S and Ph.D. in the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University in Korea. His previous study focused on the transition metal oxide anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. He worked at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology and Samsung SDI to develop lithium-ion batteries applicable to high-energy density electric vehicles. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego in the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion, working on the development of all-solid-state batteries under Prof. Shirley Meng’s supervision.

Email : wubao@eng.ucsd.edu

Wurigumula received her B.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology in 2013 and 2019 respectively. Her research interests focus on advanced anode materials. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC) under Prof. Ying Shirley Meng at UC San Diego. Her current research includes improvements and advanced characterizations of the silicon-based anode materials.

Email: wel001@eng.ucsd.edu

Weikang obtained his B.S in 2013 and Ph.D. in 2019 both from Beijing Institute of Technology. His previous research supervised by Prof. Feng Wu focused on the interface issues of cathode materials. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC) at UC San Diego under Prof. Shirley Meng’s supervision. His current research is focused on the synthesis and advanced characterization of the interface for Cobalt-free cathode materials.

Email: dht020@eng.ucsd.edu

Darren obtained his Ph.D. from UC San Diego’s NanoEngineering department, where he led the all solid-state battery research team.  He is currently focused on commercializing all solid-state batteries for stationary storage applications. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer for UNIGRID Battery, a spin-out startup company from LESC.

Email: eaw003@eng.ucsd.edu

Erik obtained his Ph.D. from UC San Diego’s Chemical Engineering department, where his research focused on the synthesis, characterization, and testing of battery materials for longer-lasting sodium all-solid-state batteries. He is currently the Chief Technology Officer for UNIGRID Battery, a spin-out startup company from LESC.