Expert Panel

Jerry Barker received his PhD in solid state electrochemistry from the University of Exeter. In his early career Jerry worked at BP and also spent time at UCSB where he collaborated and published with the Nobel prize winners Alan Heeger and Hideki Shirakawa on alkali metal doped polyacetylene. He is currently co-founder and CTO of Faradion Limited, a UK-based start-up company specializing in next generation Na-ion battery technology. Previously Jerry was Chief Scientist and Research Director at Valence Technology Inc. In May 2019, Jerry was appointed Honorary Professor within the School of Chemistry at the University of St. Andrews.

Jerry has published extensively in the energy storage area (h-index = 56, total number of citations >10,000) and is a named inventor on more than 120 issued US patents. Jerry is the inventor of a number of Na-ion and Li-ion active materials, including surface-stabilized LiMn2O4, Tavorite structured active materials, Na3V2(PO4)2F3, NaVPO4F, LiVPO4F, Li3V2(PO4)3, LiFe(Mg)PO4, as well as the Carbothermal Reduction (CTR) manufacturing method. To date, these inventions have culminated in 4 commercially successful battery enterprises and CTR is widely regarded as the benchmark, industry-standard method for the large-scale manufacture of LiFePO4.

In 2012, Jerry was awarded the IBA Technology Award for his contributions to Li-ion battery materials. He has appeared as a patent litigation expert witness in Europe and in North America. He has also acted as the due diligence technical expert for a number of VC-backed start-up companies. Jerry currently acts as an Expert Panel member for the UK’s Faraday Institution, as a Board Member of the UK Li-BATT consortium and serves on the advisory board for Australia’s storEnergy initiative.

Professor Nigel Brandon OBE FREng FRS is Dean of Engineering at Imperial College London, Director of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell SUPERGEN Hub, and Chair of Imperials’ Sustainable Gas Institute. His research is focused on electrochemical devices for energy applications, with a particular focus on fuel cells, flow cells, electrolysers, and batteries. He is a founder of Ceres Power, a fuel cell and electrolyser company spun out from Imperial College in 2000, and a founder of RFC Power, a flow battery company spun out from Imperial College in 2018. He was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal in 2007, the Institution of Civil Engineers Baker Medal in 2011, and the ASME Francis Bacon Medal in 2014. He is an international member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Over the last 7 years, Martyn has been leading on battery related research, collaborating with industry and academia across the UK, Europe and North America. Martyn is currently the Research and Development Lead for Avocet Battery Materials, where he spearheads his team’s pursuit of innovation and excellence in the field of battery tab technology. Prior to joining Avocet, Martyn completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Nottingham, and subsequently joined Morgan Advanced Materials in the ceramics research centre. Whilst with Morgan, Martyn led the R&D programme into new production methods of solid-state electrolyte materials, with a focus on fiberisation and a cost-down approach to develop ceramic solid-state electrolytes for next-gen battery technologies.

Professor Sir Peter Bruce FRS is a founder and Chief Scientist of the Faraday Institution. He is also leading the research project on solid state batteries and a member of the senior leadership team of the solid-state battery commercialisation initiative. He is the Wolfson Professor of Materials at the University of Oxford as well as Physical Secretary and Vice-President of the Royal Society. In this year’s Birthday Honours List, Peter received a knighthood for his services to science and innovation.

Peter’s research interests embrace materials chemistry and electrochemistry, especially lithium and sodium batteries. Recent efforts have focused on the synthesis and understanding of new anionic redox cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, , the challenges of the lithium-air battery and understanding the processes taking place in solid-state batteries.

His research has been recognised by a number of awards and fellowships, including from the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the German Chemical Society and The Electrochemical Society. In June 2022 he received the RSC’s Longstaff prize for pioneering research on the chemistry of materials with applications in renewable energy. He was elected to the Royal Society (UK Academy of Sciences) in 2007 and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Scottish Academy of Sciences) in 1994. He has appeared on the Thomson Reuters/Clarivate list of highly cited researchers since 2015.

Anthony K. Burrell is chief technologist for energy storage at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewal Energy Laboratory (NREL). He has been working in the areas of energy science and technology since the early 1990s with a specific focus on energy storage. He leads the Vehicle Technology Office, Silicon Consortium Project and is the PI on the Behind the Meter Storage program. Previously, he was the department head for electrochemical energy storage at Argonne National Laboratory.

He holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Joanna joined Imperial College London in October 2023 as Director of Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation.

Over the previous 15 years, Joanna worked on the research and industrialisation of a wide range of advanced material technologies. During her time at Johnson Matthey, Joanna played a key role in the growth of the Battery Materials business, gaining extensive R&D and commercial experience across a range of cathode active material (CAM) technologies, with an emphasis on automotive application. As Head of Product Development, Joanna built and led the team that developed Johnson Matthey’s high energy, high nickel CAM technology.

Alongside a passion for developing talent, Joanna has a keen interest in maximising the unique innovation opportunities at the interface between industry and academia.

Prof David Greenwood FREng is Director for Industrial Engagement, and CEO of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult at WMG. Previously, David established and led the Energy Directorate at WMG where he led a team of over 200 researchers and engineers. Projects spanned several fields, including cars, trucks, boats, off highway machinery, aircraft and motorcycles. His research spans batteries, electric motors, power electronics, and the integration and control of these for propulsion and energy applications.

David moved into academia after 20 years in industry latterly as Head of Hybrid and Electric Systems for engineering consultancy Ricardo UK Ltd.

Professor Greenwood holds advisory and board positions for the Advanced Propulsion Centre, Innovate UK (Faraday Challenge and IDP), and the Faraday Institution. He is head of the Advanced Propulsion Centre’s Electrical Energy Storage Spoke.

Dr Valentina Gentili is the Head of Cell Battery Technology and Innovation at Jaguar Land Rover, where she is a key contributor to the electrification strategy for Britain’s largest car manufacturer. Valentina joined the business in 2017 as a Technical Specialist in Advanced Battery Engineering, leading a multidisciplinary team of subject matter experts in Battery Technology, contributing to the launch of the I-Pace, Jaguar’s first electric SUV in 2018.

Valentina has previously worked as an Electrochemist and Principal Scientist at Johnson Matthey, on the characterisation and testing of commercial cells and next generation Li-ion technologies, contributing to her many years of experience in the lithium-ion battery field.

Her passion for Lithium-ion batteries began at Universita ‘Sapienza’ in Rome, Italy, where she achieved a BSc and MSc in industrial chemistry with a focus on advanced polymer electrolytes, she then pursued her PhD in nanomaterials for use as anodes in Lithium-ion batteries with Professor Peter Bruce at St Andrews University. In 2019, she also earned an MBA from LUISS Business School.

Robert Hillman was educated at Imperial College London (BSc, 1976) and the University of Oxford (Dphil, 1979). After postdoctoral research at Imperial College, he was appointed to a Lectureship at the University of Bristol (1983), to the Chair of Physical Chemistry at the University of Leicester (1992), and as Dean of the Faculty of Science (2003- 2009). He was Scientific Editor of Faraday Transactions and Faraday Discussions (1994-1997) and has been Editor in Chief of Electrochimica Acta since 2014. Prof Hillman has served the International Society of Electrochemistry as UK National Secretary (1994-1998), Secretary General (1999-2005), Chair of the Scientific Meetings Committee (2006-07) and President (2009-2010), and the Electrochemical Society through its Sensor division and Education Committees.

He is an elected Fellow of the International Society of Electrochemistry and of the Electrochemical Society. His research interests in electrochemistry have involved surface modification, electrodeposition, interfacial characterisation, materials science and interfacial analysis and imaging. He has pioneered the development of a number of acoustic wave, optical, spectroscopic, neutron reflectivity and surface analytical techniques for in situ interfacial characterisation. These works are represented in over 250 publications.

Dr Phil Johns has spent the last 13 years working in the field of battery and energy storage technology, with a particular focus on lithium and lithium-ion batteries.

Phil is currently Head of Cell Development at Echion Technologies, coordinating efforts to maximise the advantages of Echion’s novel niobium based anode materials across a variety of cells, batteries and applications.

Prior to working at Echion, Phil spent several years consulting at Exponent International, specialising in battery and energy storage investigations, including investigation of battery or battery related product failures, root cause analysis and failure recreations.

Between 2011 and 2021 Phil worked for the UK government as a principal scientist and energy storage R&D subject matter expert, primarily supporting the national security community. During this time Phil led efforts to develop safer and smarter battery systems and oversaw a portfolio of novel energy storage R&D projects.

Phil received his PhD from the University of Southampton in 2011, focusing on the origin of discharge rate limitation in nano and micro scale lithium-ion battery electrodes and use of three-dimensional electrode structures to enable high power / high energy micro-batteries.

Rob Millar is the Head of Electrical for WAE, a world-leading technology and engineering services business delivering pioneering innovation to improve performance, efficiency and sustainability to a global customer base. WAE provides ground-breaking innovation covering advanced battery and electrification technologies and product development; aided by advanced simulation, testing, rapid prototyping and volume manufacturing. Rob has been involved with vehicle electrification since 2004 when he founded his own company developing electronic systems for Modec, Tata, JLR and Daimler vehicles amongst others. Having first worked with WAE in 2010, when he was part of the team who delivered the Jaguar C-X75 programme, he joined the company as a full-time employee in 2016 to head up the company’s battery and electronics programmes. Since, highlights of Rob’s time at WAE include working in conjunction with academic institutions, for example the WIZer Batteries project, motorsport programmes and since the acquisition of the organisation by Fortescue, strategic plans for the decarbonisation of mining fleets.

John Owen is an Emeritus Professor in the Southampton Electrochemistry Group. He began his studies at Imperial College with a B.Sc. in Chemistry then a PhD (Electrical Engineering) in organic electro-optic materials. He then worked on solar energy in Iran for four years until the revolution in 1979 expedited a return to the UK. Back at Imperial College (Materials Department) he was given a Fellowship in Prof Brian Steele’s group working on lithium battery materials, including LiAl anodes, V6O13 cathodes, polymer electrolytes and composite electrodes.

John built his own research group as a lecturer at the University of Salford from 1984, then Southampton, training some 60 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in solid-state electrochemistry with applications in batteries, supercapacitors and simple models of their energy/power limitations.

John’s research has mainly comprised the synthesis and characterisation of electrochemical materials, i.e. ion conductors (separators): ceramic, glass, polymer, gel and liquid non-aqueous electrolytes, electron conducting polymers, nanostructures, nanocomposites, redox mediators, with a focus on their suitability for applications in lithium ion, lithium-air and lithium-sulphur batteries.

Julia Rowe is Global Sustainability Director for Johnson Matthey (JM), In this role, she is responsible for developing the corporate sustainability strategy and ensuring it is incorporated into all aspects of its business, from the way decisions are made on R&D projects and capital investments to the way manufacturing plants are run globally. Her current focus is developing JM’s corporate Net Zero strategy, enhancing its global responsible sourcing strategy and building up its product life cycle assessment capability. In prior positions over her 25-year career at JM, she has managed technical projects in the area of hydrogen generation and hydrogen PEM fuel cell technology and as served as Technology Commercialisation Manager for JM’s first membrane electrode assembly plant. Julia has an MA (Oxon) in chemistry and a PhD in catalysis with surface science. She is also a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Sustainability and Circular Economy advisory committee.

Paul Anderson is Professor of Strategic Elements and Materials Sustainability in the School of Chemistry at the University of Birmingham, Co-Director of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials.

The synthesis and development of improved materials for energy applications has been a major theme of his research for over two decades, with particular interests in porous framework materials, ion mobility in hydrogen storage materials and related Li+ and H+ electrolyte systems, and the efficient husbandry of the earth’s elemental resources.

Paul has published 130+ research papers in scientific journals as well as reviews, book chapters and patents in the fields of porous framework materials, nanowires and nanoparticles, and hydrogen storage materials. He has received major research grants from the Royal Society, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the European Union and Innovate UK.

Patrick Grant is the Vesuvius Professor of Materials and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Oxford. His research takes place at the interface between advanced materials and manufacturing. Particular applications include electrodes for energy storage, advanced metallics for sustainable transport and power generation, and multi-material additive manufacturing. The research uses a combination of industrial manufacturing processes, novel processes developed within the group to produce new materials or function, and process simulations to aid design and optimisation. His research involves close collaboration with industry. Work on rapid tooling was patented and exploited with Ford in the US, producing 100,000s of production components.

Patrick was Deputy Head of the Maths, Physical and Life Sciences Division at Oxford University 2012-14, Head of the Department of Materials 2015-18, and was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research in 2018. He was one of the founding academics of the Begbroke Science Park at Oxford University, now a major regional and international hub for innovation and close industrial-university collaboration. He is a non-executive director of Oxford University Innovation Ltd, Oxford University’s technology transfer company. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010.

Professor Dame Clare P. Grey FRS is a Royal Society Research Professor, Geoffrey Moorhouse-Gibson Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College Cambridge. She received a BA and D. Phil. (1991) in Chemistry from the University of Oxford. After post-doctoral fellowships in the Netherlands and at DuPont CR&D in Wilmington, DE, she joined the faculty at Stony Brook University (SBU) in 1994. She moved to Cambridge in 2009, maintaining an adjunct position at SBU, becoming a Fellow of Pembroke College in 2011. She was the founding director of the NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage, a Department of Energy, Energy Frontier Research Center.

She is currently the director of the EPSRC Centre for Advanced Materials for Integrated Energy Systems (CAM-IES). Her current research interests include the use of solid-state NMR and diffraction-based methods to determine structure-function relationships in materials for energy storage (batteries and supercapacitors), conversion (fuel cells) and carbon capture.

Other honours and awards include the Charles Hatchett Award, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (2019), the RSC John Goodenough Award (2019), the Richard R. Ernst Prize in Magnetic Resonance (2020), the RS Hughes Award (2020) and the Körber European Science Prize (2021) for her contributions to the optimisation of batteries using NMR spectroscopy. She is a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and the International Society of Magnetic Resonance and in 2024 was Pelected as an international member of the National Academy of Sciences. She is a cofounder of the company Nyobolt, which seeks to develop batteries for fast charge applications.

John Irvine FRSE FRSC has made a unique and world-leading contribution to the science of energy materials, especially fuel cell and energy conversion technologies. This research has ranged from detailed fundamental to strategic and applied science and has had major impact across academia, industry and government. Irvine’s science is highly interdisciplinary extending from chemistry and materials through physics, bioenergy, geoscience, engineering, economics and policy.

The quality and impact of Irvine’s research has been recognised by a number of national and international awards, including the Royal Society Hughes Medal in 2021, the Royal Society of Edinburgh Lord Kelvin Medal in 2018, the Schönbeim gold medal from the European Fuel Cell Forum in 2016, the RSC Sustainable Energy Award in 2015, with earlier RSC recognition via Materials Chemistry, Bacon and Beilby awards/medals.

Highlights of Irvine’s activities include discovery of the emergent nanomaterials phenomenon, establishing the field of oxide fuel electrodes, delivering high performance direct carbon fuel cells and demonstration of significant hydride ion conductivity. Other important achievements relate to photocatalysis, lithium ion batteries, non-stoichiometric oxides, structure/property/function, catalysis and electrocatalysis and bioenergy.

Saiful Islam FRSC FIMMM is Professor of Materials Science at the University of Oxford. He grew up in London and obtained his chemistry degree and PhD from University College London, followed by a research fellowship at the Eastman Kodak Labs in New York. He returned to the UK to the University of Surrey followed by a professorship at the University of Bath before joining Oxford in 2022.

Saiful is recognised internationally for his research on new energy materials especially those related to lithium-ion batteries, solid electrolytes and perovskite solar cells. He has presented more than 110 invited conference talks and published 250 papers. He is the recipient of several awards including the 2023 Institute of Materials (IOM3) Robert Perrin Award, 2022 Royal Society Hughes Medal, 2020 American Chemical Society Award in Energy Chemistry and 2017 Royal Society of Chemistry Peter Day Award for Materials Chemistry.

He presented the 2016 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for BBC TV, entitled ‘Supercharged: Fuelling the Future’ with 3.9 million viewers. He currently serves on the RSC Board of Trustees and is a Patron of Humanists UK.

Gregory Offer is Professor in Electrochemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London and leads the Electrochemical Science & Engineering Group in Mechanical Engineering. Since starting his group in 2010 he has worked with multiple industry partners on projects worth over £45.2 million. Greg has also worked as a management consultant and a government advisor. 

Professor Offer’s research is at the interface between the science and engineering of electrochemical devices. Having trained as an electrochemist before moving to engineering, his research portfolio focuses on understanding the limits of operation, degradation mechanisms and failure modes of batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells in real world applications, and the impacts and consequences on system design, integration and control. He has published multiple peer reviewed journal papers, patents, technical reports and books. Greg is a prolific entrepreneur and his research group has led to multiple spin-outs, Galvanic Energy Ltd*, Cognition Energy Ltd*, Breathe Battery Technologies Ltd*, About:Energy Ltd and Ionetiq Ltd (* personally involved). He is also the co-founder of one of the premier automotive conferences in the UK, the Future Propulsion Conference series.

Mauro Pasta, SOLBAT Project

Prof. Mauro Pasta FRSC is Professor of Applied Electrochemistry in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford. He has been leading the SOLBAT project at the Faraday Institution since its inception, initially as Project Leader and from 2023 as Principal Investigator. He has co-founded three battery startup companies: Natron Energy, Cuberg, and Project K. Professor Pasta earned his BSc, MSc, and PhD in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Milan, in his native Italy. Prior to joining the University of Oxford’s faculty, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Material Science & Engineering department at Stanford University. Professor Pasta’s research interests lie at the intersection between electrochemistry and materials chemistry to develop novel materials, devices and systems for energy conversion and storage, with expertise in battery chemistries beyond Li-ion.

Louis Piper is the Professor of Battery Innovation and heads the Electrochemical Materials group in the Energy Directorate at WMG, the University of Warwick. His activities are at the interface between physics, chemistry and engineering, and typically involve employing new capabilities to solve long-standing problems in materials science. His current research focus is on employing novel methods for studying real-format batteries to improve performance by connecting new materials, pilot line cell manufacturing, and advanced characterisation methods (for example, operando X-ray). He is an editorial board member for PRX Energy and is committed to STEM outreach, equality, diversity and inclusion.

Louis completed his PhD in Physics at Warwick University in 2006 and spent 4 years at the National Synchrotron Light Source (Upton, NY) before joining the faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York (SUNY). At Binghamton he was Professor of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy and Director of the Materials Science & Engineering Program (2017 – 2020) and won the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Creative Activities (2018). His research was supported by the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and US Air Force Office for Scientific Research and employed a range of synchrotron-based spectroscopy techniques to explain optical, electronic and electrochemical phenomena of functional metal oxides, for applications as smart displays; memristors; photocatalysts and Li-ion battery cathodes. Prior joining WMG, he worked alongside M Stanley Whittingham co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery and 2019 Nobel Laureate of Chemistry as part of the NorthEast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES). As part of these activities, he has pioneered several advanced spectroscopic tools for cathode battery studies i.e., hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES) and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) and made several critical contributions to the understanding of cathode-electrolyte interfaces, oxygen redox and the realisation of multi-electrodes for increased capacity.

Paul Shearing is Professor of Sustainable Energy Engineering at the Department of Engineering Science and Director of the ZERO Institute at Oxford University. He holds the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Battery Technologies. His research interests cover a broad range of electrochemical engineering themes with a particular interest in the characterisation and understanding of materials for batteries, fuel cells and other energy applications. He was a founding investigator of the Faraday. He is a major user of synchrotron and neutron facilities, and founded the UK STFC Global Challenge network in Batteries and Electrochemical Devices.