Curriculum vitae

University of Michigan

Dissertation: Modeling of Capacity, Resistance, and Expansion of Lithium-ion Batteries as they Degrade: Linking Expansion and Degradation · advisors Jason B. Siegel, Anna G. Stefanopoulou

University of Michigan

Indian Institute of Technology Madras

Battery Control Lab, University of Michigan

• Technical lead and proposal co-author on a $206K MTRAC award to commercialize low-cost inductive expansion sensing for battery formation diagnostics, taking the sensor from a retired first-generation design to a fab-ready four-layer board with STM32 firmware, CAN-bus integration, and on-cell temperature measurement.
• Built and validated a 20-channel formation measurement rig: 99.95% logging completeness over an 18.4-hour unattended run, a 0.005–0.065 µm noise floor that sits 21–380× below the movement it must resolve, and a signal-to-noise ratio of 199–1,542× on the first live cell measurements.
• Diagnosed a 15% duplicate-row defect in the logging path from its data fingerprint alone and closed it in twelve lines, taking 100,072 rows to zero duplicates.
• Ran a two-session sensor calibration campaign six weeks apart and showed the response is 1.9× nonlinear over 0.15 in (a linear fit misreads by up to 376 µm), establishing that a three-point quadratic with a per-fixture zero and a temperature term is required.
• Designed an 80-cell round-two test plan across four cathode/anode chemistry combinations, and wrote the operator run-book that let a month-long, non-repeatable formation campaign proceed while away.
• Developed physics-based calendar and cycling aging models for high-nickel cells under an industry sponsorship, including a vacancy-assisted cation-mixing mechanism that cut positive-electrode capacity-loss error by 59% across 18 storage conditions.
• Audited PyBaMM's lithium-plating models, showed an apparent C-rate inversion to be a voltage-cutoff artifact rather than a rate-law failure, and reported a genuine defect upstream to the maintainers: plating with no thermodynamic driving force, reproducing in 34 of 34 configurations.
• Mentoring graduate students on battery model development.

Battery Control Lab, University of Michigan

• Developed a physics-based degradation model that predicts capacity loss, resistance increase, and irreversible thickness growth together from a single consistent tuning, and validated it against cycling conditions it was never trained on.
• Linked cell-level mechanical expansion to the underlying degradation mechanisms (SEI growth, lithium plating, and particle fracture), making thickness a usable diagnostic signal rather than a nuisance.
• Designed and deployed a low-cost inductive expansion sensor and constant-pressure fixture, instrumenting 120 channels and monitoring 100+ cells simultaneously over two years at roughly 1/40th the cost per channel of the lab standard.
• Built an accelerated aging simulation method that resolves intra-cycle degradation while extrapolating between cycles, cutting lifetime simulation from days to minutes.
• Developed nonlinear observers estimating battery state from combined voltage, temperature, and expansion measurements under aging-induced parameter uncertainty.
• Contributed to a health-conscious optimal fast-charging framework.

University of Michigan

• Instructed control systems coursework across three years, authoring problem sets grounded in practical battery applications including pack balancing.
• Redesigned course logistics for online-only delivery during the pandemic, introducing weekly quizzes that measurably improved engagement.

Energo Engineering Projects Limited

• Led on-site performance testing of thermal power plants.
• Analysed plant data to diagnose performance shortfalls.
• Ran cost-benefit analysis on efficiency improvement options.

MTRAC Advanced Transportation, Michigan Economic Development Corporation / Michigan Strategic Fund · Technical lead and proposal co-author

• Translating low-cost inductive expansion sensing out of the lab and toward manufacturing use. Formation is where the SEI first grows, and it shows up as the cell's first irreversible expansion; measured on every cell, it can reveal defects and let formation protocols be shortened. Selected through a competitive process ending in an in-person pitch to an oversight committee of industry and venture professionals.
• Co-wrote the funded proposal and lead the technical programme: sensor hardware revisions, calibration and temperature correction, and the formation and cycle-life measurement campaign behind it.
• Built the market and competitive analysis, identifying research and pilot-scale labs as the beachhead where the cost gap matters most.
• Exploring licensing and startup pathways for the technology. No entity has been formed.

NSF I-Corps Great Lakes, National Science Foundation · Entrepreneurial Lead

• Completed the University of Michigan Summer 2026 cohort, running 11 customer-discovery interviews across cell manufacturing and battery research to test the market hypotheses behind the expansion sensor.

Battery Control Lab, University of Michigan

Mentoring graduate and undergraduate researchers on battery modeling, expansion measurement, and test-stand instrumentation.

University of Michigan

Authored problem sets grounded in practical battery applications including pack balancing; redesigned course logistics for online-only delivery during the pandemic.

EndeavourOS

Develop and maintain the ARM edition of the EndeavourOS Linux distribution for Raspberry Pi and Odroid N2+.

Journal of The Electrochemical Society · Ionics · IEEE Transactions

Manuscript review on battery degradation modeling, internal-short detection, and low-temperature aging.

PyBaMM

Identified a reproducible defect in the lithium-plating submodels and reported it to the maintainers with a minimal reproducing case: plating proceeds with no thermodynamic driving force, across 34 of 34 cell, model, and temperature combinations.

University of Michigan Solar Car Team

Supported safe battery pack testing and characterization, and monitored pack data for voltage mismatch and cell-level safety limits.

Sustainability Network, IIT Madras

Led e-waste awareness and collection initiatives.

Tau Beta Pi, University of Michigan

Instructor for middle-school science camps; blood drive volunteer.