People at LESC

Y. Shirley Meng, Ph.D.

Principal investigator

Dr. Y. Shirley Meng is a Professor of Molecular Engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at University of Chicago. She serves as the Chief Scientist for Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS) at Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Meng’s research focuses primarily on energy storage materials and systems – including rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and trucks, power sources for Internet of Things (IOTs), as well as grid-scale storage for deep renewable energy penetration. Meng has led the development of liquefied gas electrolytes, allowing for a new class of battery that can operate at -112°F, the technology led to the startup South 8 Technologies.

Her work pioneers in discovering and designing better materials for energy storage by a unique combination of first principles computation guided materials discovery and design, and advanced characterization with electron/neutron/photon sources. Dr. Meng is the principal investigator of the Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC). She received several prestigious awards, including the Faraday Medal of Royal Chemistry Society (2020), International Battery Association Battery IBA Research Award (2019), Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Finalist (2018), C.W. Tobias Young Investigator Award of the Electrochemical Society (2016), Science Award Electrochemistry by BASF and Volkswagen (2014) and NSF CAREER Award (2011). Dr. Meng is the elected Fellow of Electrochemical Society (FECS), elected Fellow of Materials Research Society (FMRS) and Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Materials Research Society MRS Energy & Sustainability Journal.

Dr. Meng received her Ph.D. in Advanced Materials for Micro & Nano Systems from the Singapore-MIT Alliance in 2005, and her bachelor’s degree with first class honor from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2000. She worked as a postdoctoral research fellow and became a research scientist at MIT from 2005-2007. Soon after her tenure at University of California San Diego (UCSD), she founded the Sustainable Power & Energy Center in 2015 and became the inaugural director of the Institute for Materials Discovery and Design in 2019. Dr. Meng was Zable Endowed Chair Professor in Energy Technologies at UCSD (2016-2021) before joining PME at University of Chicago. Dr. Meng’s current CV may be downloaded here.

Dr. Meng serves as the scientific advisory board member for several startups and public companies, including Advano (https://www.advano.io), Ensurge Micropower (https://ensurge.com), SES(https://ses.ai) and Shell (https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation.html)

Room 242G, Structural & Materials Engineering (SME) Building
University of California San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, MC0448
La Jolla, CA 92093-0448

Phone: 858-822-4247
Fax: 858-534-9553
Email: shirleymeng@ucsd.edu
Web: https://voices.uchicago.edu/smeng/ Link: SPEC center

Administrative Contact:

Mr. Michael Tesis

Email: mtesis@ucsd.edu

Combining first principles computation with experiments to pre-screen and design new high energy high power electrode materials – Meng’s Ph.D. work was the first of this kind and was awarded the prestigious MRS Graduate Student Award.
Pioneering in investigations into the ion transport, phase transformations and surface/interface stability in lithium and sodium intercalation compounds for electrochemical energy storage with aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy with electron energy loss spectroscopy (a-STEM/EELS)
Developed advanced neutron-based characterization techniques of electrode materials, including in-situ measurements of oxygen evolutions in high voltage cathode materials.
Developed nano battery fabrication with Focused Ion Beam (FIB)/SEM and in situ biasing and monitoring of solid/solid electrode electrolyte interfaces during electrochemical processes.

Rechargeable batteries (energy storage) for electric vehicles and renewable energy sources, functional ceramics materials for energy storage and conversion, operando characterization (electron scattering, x-ray and neutron scattering), first principles computation guided materials discovery and design.

2022–Now, Professor, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago
2019–2021, Inaugural Director, Institute for Materials Discovery and Design (IMDD)
2017–Now, Professor, NanoEngineering, University of California, San Diego
2015–2021, Found Director, Sustainable Power & Energy Center (SPEC)
2013–2017, Associate Professor, NanoEngineering, University of California, San Diego
2009–2013, Assistant Professor, NanoEngineering, University of California, San Diego
2009–2013, Adjunct Professor, Materials Science & Engineering, University of Florida
2008–2009, Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering, University of Florida
2007–2008, Research Scientist, Materials Science & Engineering, MIT

Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2022 to present
Fellow of the Materials Research Society 2021 to present
Founding Director of Sustainable Power and Energy Center 2015 to present (http://spec.ucsd.edu)
Fellow of the Electrochemical Society 2018 to present
Executive Board Member and Secretary (Elected) for Battery Division of the Electrochemical Society USA (2014 to present)
Executive Board Member and Treasurer for International Battery Association (IBA), 2017 to present
Editor-in-Chief – MRS Energy&Sustainability 2019 to present
Technical Editor– Journal of Power Sources (IF 6.7) 2015-2019
Associate Editor–NPG Asia Materials (IF 9.0) 2012-2015
Editorial Board Member – Ionics (IF 1.7) Sustainable Energy and Fuels (new journal 2016), Advanced
Energy Materials (IF 21.8) and Chemical Reviews (IF 47.9)
Guest Editor – First focused issue for Journal of the Electrochemical Society (JES) on “Intercalation Compounds” (co-editor, Stanley Whittingham)
Guest Editor – Focused issue for MRS Bulletin on “Frontier in In Situ TEM” (co-editors, Haimei Zheng and Yimei Zhu)
Regular reviewer for Journal of American Chemical Society, Chemistry of Materials, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters, Solid State Ionics, Journal of Materials Research, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Advanced Energy Materials, ACS Nano and Energy and Environmental Science, Nature Communications, Nature Chemistry and Science.
Panel reviewer for National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, USA and various overseas funding agencies including Hong Kong Council of Research, German Research Foundation, Israel Science Foundation and Canada Foundation for Innovation, Swiss National Science Foundation, Singapore A*STAR

2021, Elected Fellow of Materials Research Society (FMRS)
2020, Michael Faraday Medal of Royal Society of United Kingdom
2019, Chancellor’s Associates Faculty Excellence Award for Excellence in Research in Science and Engineering
2019, IBA2019 Research Award of International Battery Materials Association (IBA)
2018, Elected Fellow of Electrochemical Society (ECS)
2018, Blavatnik National Awards Finalist http://blavatnikawards.org/
2018, American Chemical Society ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces Young Investigator Award 2018, International Coalition for Energy Storage and Innovation (ICESI) Inaugural Young Career Award
2017, IUMRS-Singapore Young Scientist Research Award
2016, Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Award Finalist (Honorable mention)
2016, Charles W. Tobias Award, Electrochemical Society
2015, Frontier of Innovation Award
2014, Science Award Electrochemistry by BASF and Volkswagen
2013, Chancellor’s Interdisciplinary Research Award
2011, National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award
2011, Christopher Fell (Meng’s first Ph.D. student) won the Student Award of Battery Division, the Electrochemical Society.
2008, Early Career Faculty Travel Award (The Electrochemical Society)
2003, Graduate Student Award (Materials Research Society)
2002, Systems on Silicon Manufacturing Co. Pte. Ltd (SSMC) Award
2000, Singapore-MIT Alliance Postgraduate Study Scholarship (2000-2005)
1998, Industrial Attachment Book Prize
1996, Singapore Welding Society Book Prize
1995, Ministry of Education Singapore Undergraduate Study Scholarship (1996-2000)
1994, Wong’s Fund (USA) Award

ABC News (The Future of Cars) – February 15th, 2021
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/hype-versus-reality-futire-of-carsv1/13113238
UCSD News (NASA Grant) – February 12th, 2021
https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/engineers-earn-nasa-grant-to-enable-flying-taxis
Science Daily (flexible, rechargeable silver oxide-zinc battery) – December 7th, 2020
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201207112246.htm
Reuters (Commentary on Tesla) – September 23rd, 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-battery-factbox/tesla-could-struggle-to-implement-some-ofits-battery-advances-experts-say-idINKCN26E3J4
Advanced Science News Interview – September 8th, 2020
https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/shirley-meng-this-is-materials-science-it-is-the-bread-andbutter-of-our-work/
AZO Materials (The Role of Electron Microscopy in Battery Research) – September 3rd, 2020
https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=19559
The Driven (Tesla & glassy metal battery research) – July 7th, 2020
https://thedriven.io/2020/07/28/tesla-could-reap-benefits-of-truly-exciting-glassy-metal-batteryresearch/
MRS Energy & Sustainability – December 5th, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcgxr2fmb3M
ECS Interview (Shirley Meng: Becoming an Engineer) – February 28th, 2019
https://www.electrochem.org/ecs-blog/shirley-meng-becoming-an-engineer/
Green Connections Radio (Eco-Battery Technologies) – October 14th, 2017
http://greenconnectionsradio.com/eco-battery-technologies-shirley-meng-u-c-san-diegosustainable-power-energy-center/
Qualcomm (Inside Innovation: The Global Race for Better Batteries) – March 2nd, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WSwyBs0axc&feature=youtu.be
Empowered Series Blog
https://www.empoweredtheseries.com/shirley-meng
Rebellion Research Interview
https://www.rebellionresearch.com/blog/the-future-of-batteries-electric-cars-and-sustainable-energya
About Zero Carbon Future
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/achieving-zero-carbon-future
About New Research Direction
https://www.inverse.com/article/51558-could-the-future-be-powered-by-salt-this-researcher-thinks-it-s-possible
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170615142736.htm
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160706175335.htm
http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=2042
https://www.electrochem.org/the-future-of-batteries/?utm_source=Informz&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ECS+Website
About SPEC Center
http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=1998
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/oct/15/san-diego-researchers-push-build-better-batteries/
https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/index.php/pressrelease/uc_san_diego_part_of_new_doe_consortium_to_revolutionize_electric_car_batte
Guest appearance on NOVA documentary Aired February 1, 2017 on PBS
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/super-battery.html
Inside Innovation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WSwyBs0axc&feature=youtu.be
Sodium Ion Batteries – funded by NSF
https://www.inverse.com/article/51558-could-the-future-be-powered-by-salt-this-researcher-thinks-it-s-possible
Times magazine
https://time.com/4970269/batteries-next-target-china-clean-energy-conquest/
Physics today
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.4359?af=R&feed=most-recent
Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-tesla-batteries-exclusive/exclusive-teslas-secret-batteriesaim-to-rework-the-math-for-electric-cars-and-the-grid-idUSKBN22Q1WC