Heather Au
Work Package 1
Heather is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow based at Imperial College London working on cathode development as part of Work Package 1. She graduated with an MSci in Natural Sciences (Chemistry) from the University of Cambridge and went on to gain a PhD from Imperial College developing covalent modification strategies on carbon nanomaterials. She has held postdoctoral research positions at Queen Mary University of London and Imperial College, investigating the charge storage mechanisms in hard carbon anodes for sodium-ion batteries.
Liam Bird
Work Package 5
Liam is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow based at University College London working on Li-S cathode microstructure characterisation in Work Package 1. They completed their MEng at the University of East Anglia in 2017 and MRes in Graphene Technology at the University of Cambridge in 2018, where they are in progress to complete their PhD in 2023 developing techniques for operando Raman mapping of Li-S cells.
Michael Cornish
Work Package 2
Michael is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate based at Imperial College London working on macroscopic continuum models. He holds a B.Sc. in Economics and a B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics. His PhD was in the Mathematics Department at Imperial College and covered developing reduced ordered models for ferrofluid flows from a generalised Naiver-Stokes equations.
Jana Fritzke
Work Package 5
Jana is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow based at the University of Cambridge working on spectroscopic investigations of performance limiting reactions in the electrolyte as a part of Work package 2. She graduated with an MSc Chemistry at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg (Germany) in 2016 and she is in progress to complete her PhD at the TU Dresden (Germany), with the aim to investigate the electro-oxidation of alcohols at MOF-functionalized catalysts via in situ spectroscopic methods (NMR, Raman).
Mengjun Gong
Work Package 5
Mengjun is a final-year PhD student working as a Research Assistant on the LiSTAR project, based at Imperial College London. She is working on developing new cathode materials to improve the kinetics of the Sulfur reaction. She will study the materials using Rotating Ring Disk Electrode, for greater implementation in a coin cell format. She achieved her BSc in Chemistry in 2018 and in 2019 she was awarded the Basil Furneaux Memorial Fund for her MRes Green Chemistry degree from Imperial College London. In the same year, she started her PhD in non-precious metal catalysts as cathode materials for fuel cells, completing in 2023.
Agata Greszta
Work Package 4
Agata is a Faraday Institution Research fellow based at Coventry University and was a Faraday Institution Industry Fellow, in partnership with Nyobolt, helping demonstrate and develop their technology into commercially relevant prototype devices. She has over 10 years’ experience in battery development including at Oxis Energy and WMG University of Warwick, with extensive experience development of prototype battery cells, from ink and electrode development through cell engineering and testing. She is working on cell prototyping and cathode development as part of work package 4.
Alexander Kibler
Work Package 2
Alexander is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow based at the University of Nottingham working on the design, synthesis and application of redox mediators in next-generation batteries. After completing his MSc in Chemistry from the University of Nottingham in 2015, he completed his PhD in Sustainable Chemistry at the University of Nottingham 2019 investigating the electronic properties and photocatalytic activity of hybrid organic-inorganic polyoxometalates.
Jung-In Lee
Work Package 1
Jung-In Lee is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow based at the University of Cambridge working on anode development as part of Work Package 1. She gained a PhD in energy engineering from the Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology (UNIST in South Korea) in 2014. Her PhD research was focused on silicon-based anodes for Lithium-ion batteries with high energy density. So far, she has studied anodes and electrolytes for next-generation batteries.
Ali Nasrallah
Work Package 1,2,3
Ali is a Research Fellow based at the University of Surrey working on modelling Li-S batteries. Following a PhD at Cardiff University, Ali joined the University of Sheffield to work on modelling High Entropy Perovskites. In July 2023, he joined Prof. Cai's group as part of the LiSTAR project. He will be using atomic-scale modelling including Density Functional Theory and Ab initio Molecular Dynamics simulations to investigate novel electrolyte solutions and the Li metal-electrolyte interface for Li-S batteries, to unravel fundamental insights into the system and mechanisms for enabling long-cycle life, high energy Li-S batteries.
Rhodri Owen
Work Package 4
Rhod is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow based at UCL working on cell design and diagnostics as part of Work Package 4. He gained his MChem at the University of Bath where he went on to complete his Ph.D. working on the boundary between chemistry and chemical engineering. After completing post-doctoral research positions at the University of Bath and the University of Sheffield he joined the Electrochemical Innovation Lab at UCL in 2018 to study energy storage devices.
Neda Shateri
Work Package 4
Neda Shateri is a Research Fellow based at Cranfield University, working on battery systems testing, modelling, and state estimation. She received her MSc degree in Systems and Control from Coventry university in 2018. After that, she started her PhD in Advanced Vehicle Engineering Centre at Cranfield University. Her PhD research was focused on degradation modelling and state estimation of Lithium-Sulfur batteries in real-world applications.
Roby Soni
work Package 3
Roby is a Faraday Research Institution Research Fellow based at UCL working on cell design and diagnostics for anode-free Li-S battery as a part of work package 4. He obtained his PhD at National Chemical Laboratory, Pune in 2018 on developing strategies to improve the performance of redox materials in solid-state flexible electrochemical capacitors. Before joining UCL, he was a researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology where he worked on performance optimization in solid alkaline water electrolyzer and synthesis of metal oxide-based electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction.
Mark Stockham
Work Package 5
Mark is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow based at the University of Southampton working on electrolyte development and electrochemistry as part of Work Package 5. Since January 2022, Mark worked as a Research Fellow on aluminium-sulfur and aluminium dual-ion batteries, also at the University of Southampton. After completing a BSc in chemistry and an MSc in materials chemistry, Mark gained his PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2022 investigating lithium garnet electrolytes for solid state lithium batteries.
We would like to thank all LiSTAR Phase 1 Research Fellows for their invaluable research and contributions to the first phase of the LiSTAR project which ran from 1st October 2019 to 31st March 2023. Phase 2 commenced on 1st April 2023 and will run to 31st March 2025.