In 2020, seven of PNNL’s 17 highly cited researchers were experts in energy storage. This concentrated scientific expertise, coupled with its advanced R&D facilities and distinctive scientific capabilities, enables PNNL to take on ambitious energy storage programs, such as ESMI. The ESMI project team includes several of these renowned scientists, along with engineers and researchers from multiple disciplines, including materials science, chemistry, mathematics, applied computing, and grid modernization.
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Wei Wang | Director Dr. Wang is an internationally recognized expert in the field of large-scale energy storage for his innovative work on convectional energy storage technologies. He is currently the director of ESMI, a multi-million-dollar and multi-year project at PNNL to fundamentally transform the energy material R&D through a physics-informed, data-driven approach. He also serves as the chief scientist and technical lead on stationary energy storage R&D at PNNL. Dr. Wang joined PNNL in 2009 after receiving a PhD in materials science and engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. |
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Vijay Murugesan | Rapid Redox Molecule Design Lead Dr. Murugesan is a staff scientist in the Physical Sciences Division and a team leader for Interfacial Processes within the Materials Sciences group. His research focuses on charge/mass transfer across heterogeneous interfaces and materials. He frequently partners with DOE’s Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Electricity, and Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to explore chemical stability and resiliency of energy storage materials. Vijay holds a PhD in physics from Bharathiar University, India, and an MS in physics from PSG College of Arts and Science, India. Principal Investigators: Aaron Hollas, Yangang Liang |
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Zhijie (Jay) Xu | Cross-Scale Validation Lead Dr. Xu received his PhD in mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. His PhD research involves the development of large-scale parallel simulation tools for multi-scale (atomistic to continuum) modeling for aluminum alloys. Dr. Xu worked at Idaho National Laboratory starting in 2007 and was involved in modeling and simulation for subsurface strongly coupled multi-physical processes, including flow, reactive transport, and geomechanics. He joined PNNL in 2010. Principal Investigators: Jie Bao, Soowhan Kim |
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Panos Stinis | Battery Digital Twin Lead Dr. Stinis is a senior scientist in the Advanced Computing, Mathematics, and Data Division. He specializes in scientific computing with current application interests in model reduction of complex systems, singularity detection and tracking, particle filtering, mesh refinement, and machine learning. He holds a PhD in applied mathematics from Columbia University and a BS degree in mechanical engineering from National Technical University of Athens. Principal Investigators: Amanda Howard, Yucheng Fu |
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Emily Saldanha | Machine Learning Integration Dr. Saldanha is the machine learning integration leader for ESMI, where she develops machine learning methods to improve and accelerate the process of material discovery for energy storage technologies. She is a data scientist in the Data Science and Analytics group of the National Security Directorate at PNNL. She holds a PhD in physics from Princeton University and a BA in physics and mathematics from Purdue University. |
Seedling Project Leaders: Daisy Liu, Bingbin Wu, Yuyan Shao, Litao Yan, Ruozhu Feng, Steven Spurgeon, Praveen Thallapally