Student Achievement

2026/9/11 Congratulate to Duyen L Tran for winning the Federal Work Study scholarship! 

Student Achievement

2026/8/1 Both undergraduate students (Zackary L Mckay, Marten Weldon) won the best poster awards for their summer research in the lab. Congratulations! 

Paper Publication

2026/7/17 We developed a dual-halide ionic liquid electrolyte that enables a highly reversible six-electron iodine redox reaction while suppressing polyiodide shuttling and improving Zn interfacial stability. The resulting Zn–I2 batteries achieve high capacity together with excellent long-term cycling stability. I thought this work might be of interest, given your program's focus on zinc and other multivalent-ion batteries.

This work is published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

Paper Publication

2026/5/28 We developed a cost-competitive amorphous xLi3PO4-TaCl5 polyanion cluster solid electrolyte synthesized through low-energy ball milling with decent conductivity and excellent compatability with high-voltage cathode. We found that PO4 incorporation primarily distorts and softens the Cl sublattice, which facilitates Li-ion transport through the disordered halide framework. This work highlights how polyanion incorporation and structural disorder engineering can be used to design next-generation halide solid electrolytes with improved performance and potentially lower cost.

This work is published in Nano Energy.

Paper Publication

2026/4/28 We published an article in Energy Storage Materials on the topic of molecularly crowded electrolytes. This work is funded by NSF (Award #2532756).

A key challenge in aqueous zinc batteries is the high reactivity of water, which limits voltage and long-term stability. Instead of relying solely on high salt concentration, we explore molecular crowding as a strategy to regulate the electrolyte environment. We show that molecular crowding can disrupt the hydrogen-bond network of water while largely preserving the Zn2+ solvation structure. (The molecular crowding agent does not get into the first Zn2+ coordination shell)

Grant/Award

2026/2/4 I am honored to join the TAMEST 2026 Protégé Class. 

During the meeting, our work on developing future battery technologies was selected for in-person judging at the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science & Technology (TAMEST) 2026 Annual Conference and received the Audience Choice Award as part of the TAMEST Protégé Program. 

This award provides me the opportunity to present our research to an audience that includes many National Academy members and Nobel Laureates. Sincere thanks to my nominator, Dr. Babu Chalamala (NAE), the TAMEST audience for their engagement, and especially my students for their hard work and dedication.

Paper Publication

2026/1/12 We published an article in ACS Materials Letters, in which we demonstrate how orthogonal design of experiments (DOE) offers a systematic and efficient approach to exploring mechanochemical synthesis parameters. 

Paper Publication

2025/11/3 We published an article in Cell Reports Physical Science by Cell Press that highlights the safety and security aspects of batteries in electric urban air mobility (eUAM), where batteries must not only be energy-dense and lightweight but also resilient against both thermal and cyber-physical threats.