About The Event

Shirley Meng is a professor of molecular engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. She also serves as the chief scientist of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS) at Argonne National Laboratory.​

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. Meng is the principal investigator of the research group – Laboratory for Energy Storage and Conversion (LESC). She has received several prestigious awards, including the Faraday Medal of the Royal Chemistry Society (2020), the International Battery Association Battery IBA Research Award (2019), the 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). Meng is an elected fellow of the Electrochemical Society (FECS) and an elected fellow of the Materials Research Society (FMRS). She serves as the editor-in-chief for the Materials Research Society MRS Energy & Sustainability Journal.​

Meng received her Ph.D. in Advanced Materials for Micro and Nano Systems from the Singapore-MIT Alliance in 2005, and her bachelor’s degree with first-class honors from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2000. She worked as a postdoctoral research fellow and became a research scientist at MIT from 2005-2007. Meng was the Zable Endowed Chair Professor in Energy Technologies at the University of California-San Diego (UCSD) before joining PME at the University of Chicago.​

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Serving on the EnergyX Advisory Board, Bob is an energy storage technology executive with experience in large corporations (ATL, CATL, Magna, Delphi, GM) and small entrepreneurial businesses (Tawas, Indy Power Systems, World Energy Labs). He is currently CTO of CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited) the world’s largest battery manufacturer.​

Specializing in clean technology, lithium-ion battery systems used in electric vehicles, and high-efficiency storage systems, he has held the Chairmanship of the SAE International Battery Standards Steering Committee for 5 years and is President-Elect for NAATBatt International. He also serves on Senator Lugar’s Advisory Board for Renewable Energy at IUPUI the Dean’s Executive Advisory Council at Ball State University and the National Fire Protection Agencies Board of Advisers.​

Bob holds a Master’s degree in Chemistry and has 38 years of experience in battery technology. He was the first ever front cover individual feature story for Batteries International and has feature articles regularly.​

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Sara Chamberlain has worked in the energy and environment sector for nearly a decade, with a core focus on helping energy startups develop commercialization strategies. Working at the intersection of technology and entrepreneurship is a personal passion.​

She currently leads Energy Foundry’s investment activity and maintains an active role with each of the firm’s portfolio companies. Before joining Energy Foundry, Sara co-managed the government advisory practice for clean technology startups at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she successfully led multiple teams through more than two dozen federal and state grant and loan applications, including over $300 million in research grants, loans, and guaranteed loan funding. Sara’s previous experience also includes roles with GE Energy, where she developed a solar manufacturing expansion strategy, and with GaiaTech, where she led the environmental due diligence and regulatory compliance process for industrial and manufacturing transactions across North America.​

From working with large Fortune 500 companies to startup businesses, Sara has broad and deep industry knowledge of the energy sector and was recognized by Midwest Energy News as “40 under 40.”​
She holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, and a BA in Environmental Studies from Emory University.​

Dipender Saluja is Managing Partner of The Technology Impact Fund, and Managing Director of Capricorn Investment Group, an investment firm founded to demonstrate that it is possible to invest profitably while driving sustainable positive change. Capricorn manages about $7 billion in assets and strives for extraordinary investment results by leveraging market forces to accelerate large-scale impact. Capricorn’s past and current investments include Tesla, Planet Labs, QuantumScape, Redwood MAterials, Innovium, SpaceX, Twitter, and Saildrone. Before Capricorn, Dipender was Chief of Staff at Cadence, a global market leader in electronic design, where he built and managed businesses that worked closely with electronics companies around the world. Before that, he was at Data General (EMC), Honeywell, ROLM (IBM), and the GF Energy Research Center. He is an electrical engineer by training and attended UND, Univ of Minnesota, and Stanford. Dipender serves on the boards of AST, Innovium, Joby Aviation, Navitas Semi, NuVia, QuantumScape, Raxium, Saildrone, and SummerBio, and the investment committee of PRIME.​

Dr. Arrelaine Dameron is the Vice President of research and development at Forge Nano. She is a world expert in thin film deposition, nanoscale assembly, and interface engineering. Arrelaine has over 15 years of experience in materials science and chemistry, and has produced more than 60 publications and patents. Arrelaine has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University and a B.S. in Creative Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara.​

Michael Pachos is a Managing Director at Samsung Ventures. He joined Samsung in 2008, first working out of the Seoul headquarters, and then transferring to the Menlo Park office in 2013. He focuses on Consumer, Display, and IT-related investments.​

Before joining Samsung Ventures, Michael worked in the Samsung Group’s Global Strategy Group (GSG). GSG was established under the Chairman’s Office to address strategic and operational issues at the CEO level of Group companies. Michael worked on projects involving M&A, convergence digital media strategy, and channel strategy. Before joining Samsung Michael was a CPU architect at DEC, Compaq/HQ, and Intel. Michael is also a co-founder of Global Velocity; an enterprise security-related Hardware Company.​

Michael earned his M.B.A. at the Wharton School and completed law-related coursework. Michael holds his B.S. degree in Computer Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis​

Professor Chen Tsuhan is Deputy President (Innovation and Enterprise), a position he has held since 1 April 2023. He was Deputy President (Research and Technology) from June 2018 to March 2023, and was appointed Distinguished Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) on 1 June 2018. From 2017 to 2023, he served as the Chief Scientist of AI Singapore, a national programme in artificial intelligence hosted at NUS.

A renowned expert in pattern recognition, computer vision and machine learning, Prof Chen has driven efforts at strategising NUS research, mentoring researchers, and increasing NUS’ competitive research funding, which has risen by about 30% over five years. He is a strong proponent of collaborative research, launching the Reimagine Research Initiative in 2021. The initiative, which provides seed funding for interdisciplinary project ideas, seeks to encourage researchers to work across diverse fields of expertise to find solutions to the most pressing problems of our time.

Prof Chen joined NUS from the Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States, where he was the David E. Burr Professor of Engineering from 2009 to 2018. From 2015 to 2017, Prof Chen was the Cheng Tsang Man Chair Professor and Dean of the College of Engineering (CoE) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. From 2009 to 2013, he served as the Director of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell.

Venkat Viswanathan is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Viswanathan’s research focus is on identifying the scientific principles governing material design, inorganic, organic, and biomaterials, for novel energy conversion and storage routes. The material design is carried out through a suite of computational methods being developed in his group, and validated by experiments. Some key research thrusts include identifying principles of electrolyte design (organic material) that can tune electrode catalysis, identification of new anode, cathode (inorganic materials), and electrolyte materials for next-generation batteries, and new electrocatalysts (inorganic) and biomaterials for energy storage and separation applications. In addition to material design, his group is involved in several cross-cutting areas such as battery controls, electric vehicle security, and GPU-accelerated computing.​

Viswanathan received the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award in 2019, the Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry in 2018, the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2016, the American Chemical Society PRF Young Investigator Award in 2014, and the Electrochemical Society Daniel Cubicciotti Award in 2010. He was a finalist for MIT TR Innovators Under 35 in 2014 and was an Electrochemical Society Herbert H. Uhligh Summer Fellow in 2009.

Susan Babinec leads a comprehensive strategy that expands the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) vision for a future electric grid that includes a range of optimized energy storage capabilities.​
Babinec previously served six years as senior commercialization advisor for both transportation and grid energy storage at the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E). Before ARPA-E, she led several research groups as a technical director for A123 Systems, Inc. at its Ann Arbor, Michigan, site. Babinec spent the first two decades of her career at Dow Chemical Corp., where she was awarded the Inventor of the Year Award, was senior advisor to the Venture Capital group, and was the company’s first woman Corporate Fellow. She was co-inventor of a low-cost display technology that was spun out as the venture-funded start-up, holds more than 45 patents, and has authored or co-authored dozens of journal articles and book chapters.

Dr. Hu received his PhD in applied physics from Harvard in 2012.​
In the fall of 2012, cofounded SolidEnergy Systems and spun it out of MIT. The goal was to develop next-generation battery materials and revolutionize the consumer electronics and electric vehicles industries. This was during the toughest time in the US advanced battery industry, with many large battery companies going bankrupt. After overcoming enormous adversity, led SolidEnergy to win a worldwide exclusive license on the MIT patent, Series A venture investment, became the first and only startup to form a strategic partnership with A123 Venture Technologies, built a world-class team, and developed prototypes that achieved almost 1400 Wh/L in energy density in less than one year. Created a beautiful “phoenix rising out of the ashes” story.

Technical executive with diverse and extensive expertise leading teams and organizations in successfully driving product concepts from the lab to market. Strong technical background in electrochemistry, materials development, battery development/testing, and charging algorithms.​

Specialties: Lithium-ion batteries, lithium primary batteries, battery design/development/testing, materials development & processing, charging algorithms, nanotechnology, technology assessment/development & integration, operations implementation, staff/resource management & development.

Dr. Srouji directs all technical and technological developments, including IP strategy, roadmaps, and future products, internally and in collaboration with strategic partners. Before being promoted to CTO, he was responsible for R&D and Cell Technology at Romeo. Before joining Romeo, he was developing advanced physico-chemical battery models at Robert Bosch’s Research & Technology Center in Silicon Valley. He also worked on novel battery component development, spanning from next-gen lithium-ion to all-solid-state batteries. Throughout his energy storage technology career, he has successfully brought to market multiple programs funded by the US Department of Energy. He holds an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering, and a PhD in Energy & Mineral Engineering with a focus on electrochemistry from The Pennsylvania State University.​

Mr. Marc Van Den Berg serves as Managing Director of Venture Investments at OGCI Climate Investments. Mr. Marc Van Den Berg served as a Venture Partner at DBL Partners. He served as a Board Member at Superior Sensor Technology. He served as a Board Member at ZincFive and Achates Power. He was also a Managing Director at 40 North Ventures. Before joining, he spent 15 years in venture capital as a Partner at DBL Partners and a Managing Director at VantagePoint Ventures. He also serves as a Board Member at Svante Technologies. Before his venture capital career, he spent 25 years in both venture-backed startups and multinational public companies here in Silicon Valley and abroad, which included a career stint in advanced excimer lasers, industrial water treatment, and advanced semiconductor materials and equipment. He has held numerous director positions at semiconductor and clean energy companies and enjoys assisting entrepreneurs in their quests to grow exciting new companies. He is a graduate of Santa Clara University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He serves as a Board Member at Clarke Valve.​

Dr. Tal Sholklapper is a co-founder of Voltaiq and serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Before cofounding Voltaiq, Dr. Sholklapper was the lead engineer on a DOE ARPA-E-funded project at the CUNY Energy Institute, developing an ultra-low-cost grid-scale battery. Before his work at CUNY, Tal cofounded Point Source Power, a low-cost fuel-cell startup based on technology he developed while at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and UC Berkeley. Dr. Sholklapper has a BS, MS, and PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley.​

Grey is a world leader in the use of solid-state NMR methods to study structure and function in inorganic materials. She has pioneered the use of a wide range of novel and often in-situ NMR approaches to examine devices under realistic operating conditions; these have significantly impacted several areas in environmental chemistry and energy, including catalysis, ion sequestration, batteries, fuel cells, and supercapacitors. Noted for careful NMR experiments combined with a range of other structural characterization tools and relevant theoretical studies. She combines a strong understanding of NMR theory with a deep insight into materials chemistry​.

She is chief scientist and cofounder of Nyobolt, a company that is developing ultrafast-charging batteries for electric vehicles. Neil Savage spoke with her about her work on energy storage materials and why she believes they are important to the future of the planet.

Dr. Ping Liu is a Professor of Nanoengineering and the Director of the Sustainable Power and Energy Center at UCSD. Before joining the Jacobs School faculty, Professor Liu was a Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), where he initiated and managed research programs in energy storage for electric vehicles and thermal management technologies to improve building energy efficiency. He was the manager of the Energy Technology Department at HRL Laboratories (an industrial lab jointly owned by GM and Boeing) and was a research staff member with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Professor Liu received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Fudan University in China. He was a Distinguished Inventor for multiple years at HRL and won an R&D 100 award in 2009 for a battery technology developed at NREL.​

Cindi is a Partner of Total Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Total SA ($127B). She is focused on finding, funding, and fostering high-potential start-ups globally in renewable energy, mobility, smart-grid, battery storage, energy data intelligence, energy efficiency, software analytics, and enabling technologies. She is a recent expatriate in​ Paris from San Francisco. With over 18 years of experience, including 15 in energy, Cindi’s prior professional experience includes the head of corporate development (M&A, investments, joint ventures, strategy) at SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR); electric vehicle battery start-up co-founder/CEO; investment banker in traditional oil & gas energy (JPMorgan, Stephens).​

Cindi is an alumna of Harvard Business School, University of Queensland (MA, International Business), and Rice University (BA, Economics, Managerial Studies). In her spare time, she can usually be found on the trails, running or biking with her dog, on the slopes, or in a yoga studio.​

Doron brings vast experience in business and technology management to StoreDot. Before founding the company, he served as senior director of SanDisk SSD Business Unit (NASDAQ: SNDK), establishing and managing the division in Israel, building product strategy, marketing, and business development, resulting in sales to leading laptop makers amounting to over $100M in revenue in under 3 years. Previously, he was VP of Flash and Operations of systems, a flash memory global leader, where he managed strategic sourcing of $1B annually, resulting in annual revenue of over $1.5B. Doron’s diverse record also includes the founder and CEO of InnerPresence, a Silicon Valley security software company, and co-founder and VP of business development of Siftology, a pioneer in interactive media search. Earlier, as a partner at Tefen – Semiconductor Operations Management, Doron managed West Coast US operations, in charge of the design and setup of over 40 semiconductor, pharmaceutical, and biotech manufacturing facilities worldwide. Doron holds a DSc in R&D Management (1994), an M.Sc. in information systems (cum laude, 1991), and a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering Management (cum laude, 1989) – all from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.​

Clea Kolster is a Partner and the Head of Science at Lowercarbon Capital and leads the firm’s technical research, development, diligence, and scientific strategy efforts. Clea’s distinguished career has always focused on solving climate emergencies through technology, business models, and policy innovation. Before joining Lowercarbon, she worked at San Francisco-based energy consulting firm, E3, where she developed electricity resource planning models and economy-wide decarbonization plans for entire states, utilities, and asset owners, with a focus on the role of hard science emerging technologies like hydrogen production methods, long-duration energy storage, biomass conversion, carbon sequestration, geothermal and advanced nuclear. She led the analysis on over 15 projects in her two years at E3, including “Achieving Carbon Neutrality in California” (link) for the California Air Resources Board, “Net-Zero New England: Ensuring Electric Reliability in a Low-Carbon Future” (link) in collaboration with the Energy Futures Initiative, and another on “Examining the Role of Nuclear for Decarbonizing the Pacific Northwest.” Clea also co-founded her own company focused on access to clean cooking fuels in West Africa, having previously worked on clean energy access and investment across emerging markets in East and North Africa. ​

Clea earned her Ph.D. in chemical engineering and energy policy at Imperial College London. She was awarded the Grantham Institute’s full scholarship to conduct her Ph.D. and became the student representative of the Grantham Institute at the Paris COP21 Climate Conference. Clea conducted her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Imperial College London and was the only student selected to spend a year at Columbia University in New York.​

Tyler drives investment activity and portfolio management for Energize, focusing primarily on the intersection of software with the physical world. ​
Before joining the Fund, Tyler worked at Accenture Strategy, where he shaped new business models and investment plans for Fortune 500 electric utilities and private equity. His work focused on distributed energy resources, regulatory innovation, grid modernization, and transportation electrification. Tyler began his career building commercial solar PV and energy efficiency projects for an energy services company. ​

Tyler holds a B.S. in Earth and Environmental Engineering from Columbia University, where he was an Egleston Scholar.​
Tyler is a Board Director for Aurora Solar, Urbint, TWAICE, Patch, and Smartcar.​

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Dr. Song is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of ESS Inc. In this position, she has spearheaded the transition of the iron flow battery technology to becoming a commercial energy storage system. Before joining ESS Inc., Dr. Song was the Vice President of Research and Development at ClearEdge Power Inc., where she led over 20 cross-functional scientists and engineers on all corporate R&D projects and the commercialization of the 5 kW Combined Heat and Power Fuel Cell system. Dr. Song started her career at Milliken & Co. as an Industrial Research Chemist. Dr. Song has authored approximately 20 peer-reviewed publications and over 10 patents and patent applications. Dr. Song holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She specializes in fuel cells, batteries, electrochemistry, and the catalysis properties of nanoparticles.​

Hong Li is a professor at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Li has studied materials for lithium-ion batteries since 1993, making important contributions including nano-Si anode, solid lithium batteries, and failure analysis. ​

His current interests are high-energy density lithium batteries, solid batteries, failure mechanisms, and fundamental solid-state ionic problems. Li has published over 383 papers in peer-reviewed journals with over 27000 times citations and the H-factor is 84. He was ranked as a highly cited scholar in 2018 and 2019.​

Not only has he filed over 100 patents and 50 have been granted, but he also has delivered over 60 invited talks in international academic conferences.​
Li is the regional editor of Solid State Ionics, Ionics, and Journal of Materiomics. ​

Also, he is the co-founder of three companies to produce Si anode materials， solid lithium batteries, and Na-ion batteries, and co-founder of two research institutes: Tianmulake Institute of Energy Storage and Yangtze River Physical Research Center.​

He was awarded as a distinguished young scientist by NSFC. He serves as the scientific committee member of MOST and MIIT in China.​
Hong Li is also a board member of the International Meeting of Lithium Batteries and the International Society of Solid State Ionics. ​

Sarah Applebaum is the Director of Pangaea Spark at Pangaea Ventures. Pangaea Ventures is a world leader in advanced materials venture capital – investing in companies with innovations in the areas of energy, electronics, health, and sustainability. As Director of Pangaea Spark, Sarah leads the firm’s activities in seed-stage investing. ​

Sarah is a member of the Young Private Capitalist Committee of the CVCA, a start-up showcase review board for SXSW Eco, and a mentor to the Singularity University Labs Accelerator. Sarah is also the co-founder of TNT Events, a Vancouver-based organization that strives to create a more interconnected and multidisciplinary innovation ecosystem.​
Sarah holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and a BSc from Dalhousie University.​

Ms. Sarah Applebaum serves as a Partner at Pangaea Ventures. She worked as a sustainability consultant from 2010-2012 while completing her MBA. She also worked with the City of Toronto Environment Office in 2011 to help them develop a business case around climate change adaptation. Sarah is a member of the Young Private Capitalist Committee of the CVCA, an advisory board member for the CIX Cleantech Conference, a startup showcase review board for SXSW Eco, and a mentor to the Singularity University Labs Accelerator. She is the co-founder of CatapultYVR, a Vancouver-based organization that strives to create a more interconnected and multidisciplinary innovation ecosystem. She holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business and a BSc from Dalhousie University. She has also completed the executive program at Singularity University.​

Andy Lubershane serves as Partner and Head of Research at Energy Impact Partners. His research is generating insight to guide both EIP’s investments and its partners’ strategy. He has over a decade of experience researching and analyzing the impact of new technology on energy markets.​

Andy leads research at EIP, generating insight to guide both EIP’s investments and our partners’ strategy. He has spent the past decade researching and analyzing the impact of new technology on energy markets – beginning as a wind energy analyst at IHS, then pioneering research on energy storage & grid integration of renewables. At EIP, Andy​ works closely with subject matter experts & operational leaders from the firm’s strategic partners to develop market intelligence and strategic vision. He has won accolades for writing & speaking on topics ranging from the energy transition to the digital transformation of industry. Closer to home in South Portland, ME, Andy serves on the Maine Climate Council’s Energy Working Group.

Veronica was born in Guangzhou, China, and moved to the U.S. at eight years old. A 2008 Laurel Springs grad, she attended Stanford University on a full scholarship and graduated with a BA and MA in four-and-a-half years​

At Primavera, Veronica invests in early-stage and growth-stage technology companies across the private sector. She has invested in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Climate Tech, and Robotics, among other technical verticals.

Ju Li is the Battelle Energy Alliance Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering and a professor in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. His group investigates the mechanical, electrochemical, and transport behaviors of materials as well as novel means of energy storage and conversion. Before coming to MIT, Li was a professor at Ohio State University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is an elected Fellow of the Materials Research Society and the American Physical Society. He has received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award, and an MIT Technology Review TR35 Award. He earned a BS in physics from the University of Science and Technology of China, and a PhD in nuclear science from MIT.​

A Partner at Khosla Ventures, Rajesh has two decades of experience assisting and investing in deep tech startups. He manages many of the firm’s investments across renewables generation, storage, hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, plastics, food-tech, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing.​

Previously, Rajesh was the head of Applied Ventures LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, where he managed a portfolio of 85 deep-tech startups globally, as well as two deep-tech funds in Korea and Taiwan. He led investments and helped build companies, many of which had strong exits, including Enphase Energy, Solid Energy, Rockley, Infinite Power Solutions, Adaptive3D, Tango, Inpria, PlayNitride, and Norsk Ti. Rajesh was recognized amongst the top 100 global CVCs on the Global Corporate Venture (GCV) Powerlist.​

Earlier, he worked at Third Point Ventures and at Lucent’s Bell Labs, where he drove technical assessments and partnerships for several optical, MEMS, and RF device startups, and also led DFR programs for the successful deployment of Lucent’s 10Gb/s and 40Gb/s systems.​

While pursuing his MBA at Harvard Business School, he worked on Deutsche Bank’s cleantech banking team and also worked with KV on companies in solar and water. Previously, Rajesh earned a master of science degree from the University of Maryland and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, where he was awarded the Shankar Dayal Sharma (President of India) Medal for overall excellence.​

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Amanda Hall is the CEO and Founder of Summit Nanotech. Amanda spent years in the oil and gas industry and identified the opportunity to make a significant impact with clean energy.​
She is a graduate of the University of Toronto – Trinity College with a BSc Biology major and a double minor in Physics and English. She later graduated from the University of Calgary with a BSc in Geophysics and has a passion for the environment.​

Amanda is on the Advisory Board for Canadian Energy & Climate Nexus (CECN) and sits on the Board of the Chilean Clean Technology Institute. She is a mentor for the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists (CSEG) and contributes to the arts as a member of the Board of Directors for the Calgary Opera.​

Zheng Chen received his Ph.D. at UCLA in 2012 under the supervision of Prof. Yunfeng Lu in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. His Ph.D. work is mainly related to the design and synthesis of nanostructured materials for electrochemical energy storage devices. From 2013-2016, he was a postdoctoral associate working with Prof. Zhenan Bao in Chemical Engineering and Prof. Yi Cui in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, where his work focused on functional polymer materials for enhanced energy density, longer cycling lifetime, and improved safety of batteries.​

Chen received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tianjin University in China. He was awarded a Student Science Talented Award (Tianjin University, 2007) and, a Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Ph.D. Students Studying Abroad (2011), the MRS Graduate Student Silver Award (2011), and the Department Outstanding Graduate Award (UCLA, 2012). Chen’s research focuses on material’s development for applications in electrochemical energy, flexible devices, and sustainable environments. He will teach courses across the core Chemical Engineering disciplines.​

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Laurie is responsible for equity investments in early-stage companies with a focus on 3D Printing, Agtech, Future of Mobility, Material Informatics, Nutrition, and any digital technologies driving the sale of new chemicals and materials.​

Biotechnologist by training, she spent her career working in innovation by supporting R&D commercialization​ strategy and startup acquisition at Solvay and leading the creation of a dozen new ventures at SRI International, with an emphasis on robotics, computer vision, and speech technologies.​ She is passionate about entrepreneurship, bringing her experience working at startups and corporate innovation groups to successfully commercialize innovation.​
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Ajay Kochhar is the President and CEO, co-founder of Li-Cycle.​
Responsible for strategic oversight of Li-Cycle’s various functional business units, which include Commercial, Technical (Health, Safety, Environment and Quality/HSEQ, Operations, Commercialization, Research and Development), and Shared Services. Additionally, Ajay supports the development of international growth initiatives for the company in collaboration with Li-Cycle’s Corporate Development team.​

Before founding Li-Cycle, Ajay gained extensive technology and project development experience through progressive roles with Hatch’s industrial cleantech and advisory practices. While working in that space, he garnered in-depth engineering and project management experience through clean technology development in the lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, gold, lead, zinc, molybdenum, and rare earth metals industries. His technical expertise spans the entire project lifecycle, from conceptual and pre-feasibility studies to construction and commissioning.​

Born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, Ajay comes from entrepreneurial roots, having gained experience from a young age via a family business. An ardent music enthusiast, he is a classical guitarist who maintains the hobby even now for enjoyment.​

Ajay is a graduate of the University of Toronto and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) in Chemical Engineering​

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Alex is the Principal at Jade Cove Partners. He was a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree in Energy for 2021, and Lithium Partner at Minviro where he built environmental impact models of lithium-ion battery supply chain mineral and metal conversion processes. He is a technology innovation advisor at Zelandez, a lithium brine-field services company with operations in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, and a research affiliate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Alex co-founded Lilac Solutions, a lithium extraction technology company.​

Alex has an M.S. from Northwestern University in Chemical Engineering and a B.Eng. from McGill University in Chemical Engineering & Philosophy. You can find Alex on Linkedin, Twitter, or by email. He is based in beautiful San Francisco, California. Alex is currently the CEO of a new technology company.​

Michael O’Kronley is a dynamic business leader with 25+ years of diverse industry experience, in multiple functional areas, including new business development, program management, product development, manufacturing operations, and business planning & strategy development. Possess strong leadership, team building, and business acumen skills resulting in value creation within organizations.​

Michael O’Kronley was named CEO of Ascend Elements in March 2020 and has served on the company’s board since 2017. Before Ascend Elements, he was Head of Corporate Strategy at A123 Systems. He has worked in the automotive and EV battery industries for over 25 years with previous business development, operations, and engineering roles at Metaldyne Corp. and Robert Bosch. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Engineering from the University of Michigan.​

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