Speakers

Dr. Susanne Dörfler earned her PhD in materials chemistry from TU Dresden in 2013, focusing on adapting vertically aligned CNTs for energy storage applications such as sulfur cathodes. She has been a group manager at IWS since 2016 and has coordinated various R&D projects and/or work packages (WPs) in EU projects on battery material development and electrochemical characterization. Her team has experience in characterizing innovative materials and composites for applications in various next-generation battery chemistries, and since 2018, especially in sulfide-based solid-state batteries.

Yoshiya (Josh) Fujiwara is the Division Manager at the Consortium for Lithium Ion Battery Technology and Evaluation Research Center (LIBTEC) in Japan. In his current role, he oversees computational materials science and advanced analysis within the national SOLID-Next project. Prior to joining LIBTEC in 2023, he spent over two decades as a Chief Engineer and Principal Scientist at Honda R&D and the Honda Research Institute USA, pioneering next-generation battery materials, electrocatalysts, and hydrogen storage technologies. His international research background includes visiting scholar positions at MIT, Ohio State University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He holds over 60 patents and has authored numerous publications on energy storage modeling and materials design.

Yan-Yan Hu is a Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Florida State University and a faculty affiliate of the National High Magnetic Field Lab. Her research advances magnetic resonance techniques to investigate interface chemistry, ion transport, and microstructure formation in energy and biomaterials. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Tsinghua University and her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry, focusing on solid-state NMR method development and applications, from Iowa State University, advised by Prof. Klaus Schmidt-Rohr. She then conducted postdoctoral research in energy materials as a Royal Society Newton Fellow and a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Dame Prof. Clare Grey. She is a recipient of the Marion Milligan Mason Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Emerging Young Investigator Award from the Florida Section of the ACS, the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, and the Agnes Fay Morgan Research Award from Iota Sigma Pi. Dr. Hu served as an Associate Editor for Materials Today Chemistry and as a Guest Editor for the Journal of Magnetic Resonance, and she currently serves as a Topical Editor for Chemistry of Materials.

Partha P. Mukherjee is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a University Faculty Scholar at Purdue University. His prior appointments include Assistant Professor and Morris E. Foster Faculty Fellow of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University (2012-2017), Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (2009-2011), Director’s Research Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory (2008-2009), and Engineer at Fluent India (currently Ansys Inc., 1999-2003). He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 2007. His honors include Scialog Fellows’ recognition for advanced energy storage, University Faculty Scholar and Faculty Excellence awards for Early Career Research and for Graduate Student Mentorship from Purdue University, the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society Young Leaders Award, and invited presentations at the U.S. National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering symposium and Gordon Research Conference (GRC) – Batteries, to name a few. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. His research interests focus on transport, electrochemistry, and materials interactions in energy storage and conversion. 

Mauro Pasta is Professor of Applied Electrochemistry in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford. He received his BSc, MSc, and PhD in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Milan, Italy, and subsequently carried out postdoctoral research in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University.

Professor Pasta’s research lies at the interface of electrochemistry and materials science, with a focus on developing battery chemistries beyond lithium-ion. His work aims to achieve a mechanistic understanding of solid electrode interphases and their relationship to bulk electrolyte properties, with the ultimate goal of enabling the rational design of next-generation electrolytes.

In addition to his academic research, Professor Pasta is strongly committed to translating fundamental science into real-world impact. He currently leads the SOLBAT (solid-state lithium metal anode) programme at the Faraday Institution, which seeks to accelerate the development of solid-state battery technologies. He is a co-founder of four battery start-ups, through which he aims to accelerate the commercial deployment of next-generation energy storage solutions.

Over the course of his career, Professor Pasta has received multiple honours, including the Corday–Morgan Prize (2025) and the Piontelli Award (2017), and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2021. He has published 115 peer-reviewed papers, which have received more than 19,000 citations (h-index 55).

Claire Villevieille earned her PhD from the University of Montpellier in 2009, focusing on the development of alloy materials for Li-ion batteries under the supervision of Laure Monconduit. Subsequently, she spent ten years at the Paul Scherrer Institute, initially as a senior researcher supervised by Prof. Petr Novak, and later as Group Leader of the Battery Materials and Characterization group. Her research concentrated on advancing operando techniques both in laboratory and at large-scale facilities, including synchrotron and neutron sources, to better understand complex reaction mechanisms in various electrochemical systems such as Li-ion batteries, Na-ion batteries, and Li-S batteries.

In 2021, Dr. Villevieille joined the LEPMI laboratory as a CNRS Research Director and received her habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR) that same year. Her current work encompasses solid-state batteries based on thiophosphate materials and water-based electrolytes. She is committed to investigating intricate reaction mechanisms within battery systems utilizing diverse operando methodologies at both lab and facility scales, aiming to overcome limitations related to ionic and electronic transport properties. Her core research interests include solid-state synthesis, electrochemical behavior, and the bulk–surface relationships of electrode and electrolyte materials.

To date, Dr. Villevieille has supervised over 30 students and postdoctoral researchers, published more than 140 articles, and has been honored with several awards from professional societies in materials science and battery research (ISE, IBA, SCF, among others).