Co-Investigators

Imperial College London

Heather Au

Heather is a Royal Society University Research Fellow based at Imperial College London. After graduating with a MSci in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, Heather obtained her PhD in 2017 from Imperial developing covalent modification strategies on carbon nanomaterials. She was a postdoctoral research associate at Queen Mary University of London and Imperial, where her research interests shifted to investigating charge storage mechanisms in sodium-ion battery anodes, and later a Faraday Institution Research Fellow, working on the development of engineered carbon hosts for sulfur cathodes in lithium-sulfur batteries. Heather’s current research focuses on exploring sustainable materials for structural energy storage.

Cranfield University

Daniel Auger

Daniel is based in the School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing at Cranfield University. His research looks at ways to exploit estimation and control techniques in vehicle and energy storage applications, particularly in the context of fast model calibration and battery management.  Daniel uses carefully designed hardware-in-the-loop experiments to replicate real-world battery behaviours early in a product lifecycle, and then uses formal system identification techniques, control-oriented estimation techniques and computer science to produce models and state estimation software for incorporation in real-time battery management systems.

Daniel is currently working on the application of reduced-order physics-based models for fast model calibration and estimation, control of hybrid battery systems and state estimation in lithium-sulfur batteries.

University of Surrey

Qiong Cai

Qiong is a Professor in Sustainable Energy and Materials, a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry, and Theme Leader on Chemicals for Net-Zero within the Institute for Sustainability at the University of Surrey. Her research interests are in design and development of energy materials for sustainable energy conversion and storage using batteries, hydrogen electrolysers, fuel cells, and catalytic chemical conversions. Her work covers atomic-scale materials modelling (using DFT and MD simulations), and meso-scale materials engineering (using CFD, finite element, and 3D pore-scale lattice Boltzmann method), to combine fundamental understandings of materials chemistry with material physics and engineering. She has collaborated widely with experimentalists across disciplines to unravel fundamental mechanisms. Her group also work on experimental research for developing new materials and novel technology solutions. 

University of Cambridge

Manish Chhowalla

Manish Chhowalla is the Goldsmiths’ Professor of Materials Science. His research interests are in the fundamental studies of atomically thin two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). In particular, his group studies the optical and electronic properties of different phases of 2D TMDs. He has demonstrated that it is possible to induce phase transformations in atomically thin materials and utilize phases with disparate properties for field effect transistors, catalysis, and energy storage.

Prior to Cambridge, Prof. Chhowalla was a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. Before that, he was a doctoral student in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University Cambridge and Churchill College. After his doctorate and Royal Academy of Engineering Postdoctoral Fellowship, Professor Chhowalla worked in industry where he developed applications for “amorphous diamond”.

Cranfield University

Abbas Fotouhi

Abbas Fotouhi received his PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology in 2011. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Advanced Vehicle Engineering Centre at Cranfield University. Before joining Cranfield University in 2014, he was with the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIRO) at the University of Technology in Malaysia. Dr Fotouhi’s expertise is in dynamic systems modelling, simulation, optimization, and control. In addition, he has extensive practical and algorithmic experience in applying AI and Machine Learning techniques to engineering problems. His current research includes electrified vehicle powertrain systems, batteries, and transportation system optimization. Dr Fotouhi has supervised more than 50 MSc and PhD students and his total writing portfolio lists over 60 publications. He is an Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Automotive Innovation journal and an editorial board member of Neural Computing and Applications Journal. Dr Fotouhi is also a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy and a fellow of the Faraday Institution in the UK.

University of Cambridge

Clare Grey

Clare Grey is a chemist and expert in the application to materials of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a physical phenomenon that allows observations of atomic nuclei. In particular, she uses NMR to study rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIB) and their potential for use in energy storage applications that benefit the environment. Clare and her team developed NMR methodology to monitor structural changes that occur during the operation of a battery. Her research has helped us to understand how batteries charge and discharge, and has also clarified the physical properties of a number of technologically important materials.

Clare now investigates the effect of local structure and electronic properties on LIB performance and is testing wider applications of the technology. Her work has introduced LIBs for use in combination with new renewable energy sources and to the field of transportation. Clare’s research has been recognised by several awards, including the Günther Laukien prize in 2013, and the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 2014.

Clare serves as the PI on the Faraday Institution Battery Degradation project.

University College London

Rhodri Jervis

Rhodri Jervis graduated from Balliol College, Oxford in Chemistry in 2008 and after a short time working for a medical research spinout in his home town of Swansea obtained his PhD in fuel cell catalysis from University College London in 2015. After a post-doctoral research position in redox flow batteries he took up a position as lecturer in Chemical Engineering in UCL in 2018. His research interests focus on studying energy materials using a combination of electrochemical and x-ray techniques.

Rhod serves as the project lead for the Faraday Institution Battery Degradation project.

University of Nottingham

Lee Johnson

Lee Johnson received his first degree from Newcastle University, after which he completed a PhD and post-PhD Fellowship in physical chemistry and electrochemistry at the University of Nottingham. He then joined the research group of Prof Sir P.G. Bruce FRS at the University of Oxford, where he studied the elementary processes taking place within the lithium-O2 battery. In 2017, he was awarded a Nottingham Research Fellowship, University of Nottingham, followed by an EPSRC Fellowship in 2018, both to support study of next-generation batteries. In 2019 he was promoted to Associate Professor in the School of Chemistry. His current research interests focus on understanding interfacial reactions, degradation, and charge transfer, in electrochemical energy devices.

University College London

Alex Kibler

Dr. Alexander Kibler is a Lecturer within the APL group in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UCL. His research interests revolve around the design, synthesis and application of chemical components in electrochemical energy storage devices, with a specific interest in next-generation battery technologies. He obtained his PhD in Sustainable Chemistry from the University of Nottingham in 2019, in hybrid polyoxometalate systems for energy applications. He then undertook a Postdoctoral Research Associate position in the LiSTAR program of the UK Faraday Institution working on functional electrolyte additives for Li-S batteries, before being appointed as a Lecturer in Electrochemical Systems at UCL in 2024.

Imperial College London

Monica Marinescu

Monica is interested in understanding how physical and chemical processes impact the behaviour of energy storage devices in applications. This involves identifying the mechanisms that limit behaviour under real conditions, which is done by building electrochemical and physical models. Monica uses experimentally observed behaviour to parametrise and validate these models, and use them further to explore ways in which their performance can be improved. She also synthesises this knowledge into reduced order models, which can be used for control algorithms in a given application.

Monica is currently working on lithium ion batteries, lithium sulfur batteries, supercapacitors and Li-ion capacitors.

University College London

Tom Miller

Thomas Miller is a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering and the Electrochemical Innovation Lab (EIL). He gained his MChem (2009) and PhD (2014) at Warwick University, before moving to UCL.  He holds on an EPSRC fellowship aimed at developing next-generation supercapacitors and high-power energy systems from fundamentals to device scale. He is an expert in nanomaterials creation, characterisation and electrochemistry, as well as the in-operando understanding of materials for energy storage using electrochemical scanning probe techniques.

University of Nottingham

Graham Newton

Graham Newton received his M.Sci. (2005) and Ph.D. (2009) from the University of Glasgow under the guidance of Prof. Lee Cronin. His doctoral studies focused on the synthesis of polynuclear coordination compounds and the use of cold-spray ESI-MS as a means of tracking their self-assembly. Upon completion of his doctorate he moved to the University of Tsukuba to work with Prof. Hiroki Oshio on a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship, investigating the synthesis and properties of multi-stable transition metal clusters. He became an Assistant Professor at the University of Tsukuba in 2011, before moving to the University of Nottingham as a Nottingham Research Fellow in April 2015.

University of Oxford

Mauro Pasta

Prof. Mauro Pasta (FRSC) is a Professor of Applied Electrochemistry in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford. He currently serves as the Principal Investigator of the SOLBAT (solid-state batteries) project as part of The Faraday Institution. His research interests encompass electrochemistry and materials chemistry, with a primary focus on developing innovative materials for electrochemical energy storage. With expertise in battery chemistries beyond Li-ion, he has published 89 papers, with an h-index of 42 and over 14000 citations. Additionally, he holds 18 patents and patent applications. As a co-founder of three battery startup companies, Natron Energy, Cuberg and Project K, Prof. Pasta is dedicated to translating his research into real-world solutions.

University College London

Alex Rettie

Alex Rettie is a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at University College London (UCL) since January 2019. His expertise is in the experimental discovery and characterisation of electrochemical energy materials and their incorporation into devices, with a focus on electronic and ionic charge transport.

Prior to joining UCL, he was a post-doc at Argonne National Laboratory where he focused on materials design and total scattering techniques. He received his Ph.D. (Chemical Engineering) from the University of Texas at Austin in 2015, investigating metal oxide photoelectrodes and his M.Eng. degree (Chemical Engineering) from the University of Edinburgh.

Coventry University

Alex Roberts

Professor Alexander Roberts is Chair of Energy Storage at Coventry University and is Theme Lead for Energy Storage research. He has over 15 years’ experience engaging in energy storage research, working from materials discovery through to device development and design, and testing and characterization. He founded the Cell Prototyping Lab at CU, from which he leads in the translation of lab-based discoveries to demonstrator prototypes. He currently holds a range of UKRI and commercial R&D and consultancy contracts focused on cell development and testing, across a range of companies and energy storage technologies, including component and cell manufacturers and developers from the UK, Europe, and North America. His research interests currently include the relationship between materials properties and processing and their effects on device performance, and the improvement of cell design and manufacturing processes for a range of applications.

Imperial College London

Magda Titrici

Magda is a Professor of Sustainable Energy Materials at Imperial College London working on sustainable carbon materials and their applications in energy storage and conversion. She has many awards in recognition of her research including the 2018 RSC Corday Morgan Prize. She is a world leader in sustainable synthesis of novel carbon structures and compounds and their application to electrochemical devices, and has extensive experience in Li-S batteries, and notably has a recent review on functional binders in Li-S.

University of Nottingham

Darren Walsh

Dr Darren Walsh is Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry in the School of Chemistry. He was born and attended school in Dublin. After obtaining his PhD from Dublin City University, he left Ireland and took up a research position at the University of Texas in Austin. He is currently Associate Professor of Physical in the School of Chemistry and runs a research group interested in electrochemistry. The group works on a range of electrochemical topics, many of which are related to electrochemical energy storage and conversion. He is the author of over 50 original research articles and invited book chapters in the areas of physical and analytical electrochemistry. He also enjoys bringing his science to the public. He performs chemistry demonstration lectures for general audiences and is a presenter on the Periodic Table of Videos, an award-winning chemistry channel on YouTube.

Darren is the EDI Champion and the Training Champion for LiSTAR.

We would like to thank Prof Greg Offer (Imperial), Dr Huizhi Wang (Imperial), Prof Peter Bruce (Oxford), Prof Vasant Kumar (Cambridge), Prof Constantina Lekakou (Surrey), Dr Carol Crean (Surrey), Prof Robert Slade (Surrey), Prof Stephen Tennison (Surrey) and John Watts (Surrey) for their invaluable research and contributions to phase 1 of the LiSTAR project which ran from 1st October 2019 to 31st March 2023.

We would like to thank Prof Neil Champness (Birmingham), Prof Andrea Ferrari (Cambridge), Prof Georgina Gregory (Oxford) and Prof Anthony Kucernak for their invaluable research and contributions to phase 2 of the LiSTAR project which ran from 1st April 2023 to 31st March 2025.

Phase 3a of LiSTAR will run from 1st April 2025 to 31st March 2026.