PhD Internship Spotlight: Jacob Dean
Faraday Institution PhD internship leads to exciting industry role at WAE! The impact of growing one’s network.
The internship project
Jacob Dean undertook his PhD research at the University of Bath as part of the Multi-Scale Modelling project; his research focused on solid-state electrolytes used in all solid-state batteries. The performance of current solid electrolytes are hindered by inhomogeneities in these materials. Jacob’s research used computational models to gain an improved understanding of phenomena present at these inhomogeneities. Jacob is passionate about applying computational methods to facilitate moving towards a more sustainable future.
A talk from Melissa He, Senior Engineer at WAE, during a Faraday Institution PhD training event on pathways post PhD, inspired Jacob to actively explore opportunities to gain experience in an industry setting and he went on to complete an internship with WAE from July to September 2022.
Internship provider perspective
Internships provide the opportunity for industry partners to work with PhD researchers who have specialist battery knowledge. Tim Engstrom, Technical Lead at Elysia Battery Intelligence from WAE, describes the impact to the business:
Jacob did a three-month internship at WAE, during the run-up to the launch of our Battery Intelligence product division ‘Elysia’. The internship placed him into a fast-paced development environment, which required a pragmatic delivery focus that balances time to market, value creation, and strategic R&D goals.
Within weeks, Jacob had delivered proof of concepts for battery diagnostics, which have since been implemented into the Elysia Cloud Platform and subsequently deployed into live programmes. Jacob introduced an ‘eye for detail’ that has had a long-term impact on the team’s processes, particularly in assessing data quality in real-world fleet datasets, and the limitations this might have on the insights that can be generated. Following his successful internship, Jacob has since returned as a full-time Data Scientist within the Elysia Battery Intelligence team at WAE.”
Intern reflections
During his PhD project, Jacob used computational chemistry and computer simulations to gain an improved understanding of complex chemical phenomena. His computational and data analysis skills transferred well to this internship, and he enjoyed applying his knowledge to a real-world context. He comments, “I was building a broader understanding of things I hadn’t come across when I was doing my PhD research.”
While data analysis was central to the PhD research project, data processing and manipulation was key at WAE. The computational chemistry data Jacob had used for his PhD was already relatively “clean”, whereas the data he used in his internship came from real-world sources and therefore required considerable processing.
A highlight of Jacob’s internship was working and collaborating with the Advanced Battery Technologies team at WAE. All his colleagues had different backgrounds and specialities, and most had prior industry experience. Jacob valued the fact that everyone was very willing to help and give advice if he had a problem. Similarly, he added value to the team with his expertise in using the computer programming language Python, which he used throughout his PhD. The fast pace of work at WAE compared to academia was appealing and Jacob thrived on working to clear deadlines and seeing the outcome of his analysis having obvious impact.
I found seeing that my problem solving and data analysis had tangible results – such as analysis being applied to live sources and in live programmes – very rewarding.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the internship with WAE. It has been the highlight of my PhD, and it would never have happened without the careers event that the Faraday Institution organised or all the work the team have done for the cohort over the years.”
Learn more about the Faraday Institution PhD training Programme and contact [email protected] if you are an industry partner who would like to discuss providing an internship.
Internship success story published June 2023.