Team

Judith Vidal, Ph.D.: Vidal is director of the Degradation Reactions in Electrothermal Energy Storage (DEGREES) Energy Earthshot Center. She is also the Building Thermal Energy Science group manager for the Building Technologies and Science Center at NREL. She has established an international reputation for her cutting-edge work on thermal systems, building first-class capabilities such as the Thermal Storage Materials Laboratory and the Thermal Systems Process and Components Laboratory at NREL for measuring the full range of thermophysical material properties and performing material degradation evaluations. See Vidal's staff profile for more information.

Katie Jungjohann, Ph.D.: Jungjohann is the logistics lead coordinator and the characterization crosscutting area lead. She is a group manager for NREL's Material Group. She led the development of a microelectromechanical system device fabrication to advance in situ scanning transmission electron microscopy capabilities, which resulted in a patent. Her expertise is in analytical microscopy and imaging characterization. See Jungjohann's staff profile for more information.

Jon Almer, Ph.D.: Almer is group leader and physicist at Argonne National Laboratory. Almer will support DEGREES through synchrotron-based characterization. See Almer's staff profile for more information.

Yu-chen (Karen) Chen-Wiegart, Ph.D.: Chen-Wiegart is an associate professor in materials science and chemical engineering at Stony Brook University. For the DEGREES project, Chen-Wiegart will be the thermochemical material (TCM) oxides project lead, and focus on synchrotron X-ray imaging, nano-tomography, and multimodal studies with operando analysis. See Chen-Wiegart's staff profile for more information.

Shuang Cui, Ph.D.: Cui is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas, Dallas. She is the Thrust 3 co-lead with expertise in thermal energy storage with dynamic control and thermodynamic modeling. See Cui's staff profile for more information.

Marc Day, Ph.D.: Day manages the High-Performance Algorithms and Complex Fluids Group within the Computational Science Center at NREL. For DEGREES, Marc will lead both the modeling crosscut and multiscale modeling framework efforts. See Day's staff profile for more information.

Jianjun Dong, Ph.D.: Dong is a professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University. His research areas are theoretical condensed matter physics and computational materials physics. For DEGREES, Dong will be part of the multiscale modeling team and focus on atomistic and molecular simulations. See Dong's staff profile for more information.

Simerjeet Gill, Ph.D.: Gill will lead DEGREES Thrust 1 and the phase change material (PCM) metal alloy eutectics project. See Gill's staff profile for more information.

Brandon Knott, Ph.D.: Knott is a group manager for the Renewable Resources and Enabling Sciences Center at NREL. Knott's expertise is in nucleation modeling to evaluate supercooling, and he will be part of DEGREES' multiscale modeling team. See Knott's staff profile for more information.

Tim LaClair, Ph.D.: LaClair is a researcher in NREL's Building Technologies and Science Center. He is the DEGREES theory crosscut lead with expertise in functionalized thermal energy storage material development See LaClair's staff profile for more information.

John Mangum, Ph.D.: Mangum is a materials science researcher in the Analytical Microscopy and Imaging Science group at NREL. He serves as the DEGREES Student and Postdoc Association (SPA) liaison, and the in-situ and analytical electron microscopy lead See Magnum's staff profile for more information.

Akanksha Menon, Ph.D.: Menon is an assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. She will focus on TCM characterization and analysis for the DEGREE project. See Menon's staff profile for more information.

Mark Messner, Ph.D.: Messner is a group leader in the Thermal and Structural Materials Modeling and Simulations group at Argonne National Laboratory. Messner will focus on degradation and lifetime modeling for DEGREES. See Messner's staff profile for more information.

Julie Mueller, Ph.D.: Mueller is a group manager for the Computational Science Center at NREL. She will focus on surrogate modeling, optimization, and sensitivity analysis for DEGREES as part of the multiscale modeling team. See Mueller's staff profile for more information.

Mohammad Rahimi, Ph.D.: Rahimi is a researcher in the High-Performance Algorithms and Complex Fluids group within the Computational Science Center at NREL. He will support DEGREES in the multiscale modeling team.

Kerry Rippy, Ph.D.: Rippy joined NREL's Building Technologies and Science Center in 2019, leading a project to reduce corrosion in concentrating solar power plants using electrochemistry. She is the DEGREES synthesis crosscut lead, PCM MgCl2 project co-lead, and PIER plan lead. See Rippy's staff profile for more information.

Melissa Rose, Ph.D.: Rose is section manager for Salt Technologies at Argonne National Laboratory. In DEGREES, Rose will focus on molten salts and thermophysical properties. See Rose's staff profile for more information.

Dileep Singh, Ph.D.: Singh leads the Thermal and Structural Materials group in Argonne National Laboratory's Applied Materials division. Singh will focus on degradation mechanisms and mitigation in the DEGREES project. See Singh's staff profile for more information.

Jim Wishart, Ph.D.: Wishart is the director of the Molten Salts in Extreme Environments Energy Frontier Research Center at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Wishart will focus on physical properties and reactivity of salts for DEGREES. See Wishart's staff profile for more information

Shannon Yee, Ph.D.: Yee is an associate professor at Georgia Tech. Research areas include heat transfer, combustion, and every systems. Yee is the DEGREES Thrust 3 lead and will focus on TCM characterization and analysis. See Yee's staff profile for more information

Youyang Zhao, Ph.D.: Zhao is part of NREL's Center for Energy Conversion and Storage Centers. For DEGREES, Zhao will be the Thrust 2 lead and PCM MgCl2 project co-lead. See Zhao's staff profile for more information.

Executive Committee

Lead: Peter Green, Ph.D., NREL

Postdoc and Graduate Student Committee

Lead: John Mangum, Ph.D., NREL

Team: Yu-chen (Karen) Chen-Wiegart, Ph.D., Stony Brook University; and Kerry Rippy, Ph.D., NREL