“Aqueous Electrolyte Polyionic Electrochemical Cells for Scaled Stationary Energy Storage”
Dr. Whitacre received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1999 in Materials Science and Engineering. He held various positions at Caltech and JPL (where he was trained as a systems engineer) before taking his current Professorship at Carnegie Mellon in 2007, with a joint appointment in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Engineering and Public Policy. There he develops functional materials systems and performs economic/environmental impact assessment for energy technologies. His early work at CMU resulted in the conception of a novel, low cost, sodium-ion based, scalable energy storage device. In 2008 he founded Aquion Energy, a company that has since garnered over $50 M in funding. He is currently on leave from CMU to serve as full time CTO for Aquion as it scales a pilot manufacturing plant in Pittsburgh, PA and cites it first scaled production facility. Professor Whitacre has over 50 peer–reviewed papers and patents.