Shirley Meng, ESRA Director

Y. Shirley Meng is a professor of molecular engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at The University of Chicago. She also serves as chief scientist for the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS) at Argonne National Laboratory. Meng’s research focuses primarily on energy storage materials and systems – including rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and trucks, power sources for Internet of Things (IOTs), as well as grid-scale storage for deep renewable energy penetration.

Her work pioneers in discovering and designing better materials for energy storage by a unique combination of first principles computation, guided materials discovery and design, and advanced characterization with electron/neutron/photon sources.

Bryan McCloskey, ESRA Deputy Director

Bryan McCloskey is a faculty engineer in the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Department Chair and Warren & Katharine Schlinger Distinguished Professor in Chemical Engineering in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

His laboratory explores numerous applications of electrochemistry to energy sustainability, conversion, and storage. Current projects focus on elucidating the fundamental electrochemistry of metal-air batteries, and understanding a variety of challenges facing Li-ion batteries, including high voltage cathode stability, advanced cathode material development, extreme fast charging, and low temperature and high transference number electrolyte formulations.

Wei Wang, ESRA Deputy Director

Wei Wang is a recognized expert in the field of grid energy storage for his innovative work on the redox flow battery technologies. He is a Laboratory Fellow and currently the director of the Energy Storage Materials Initiative, a multi-million-dollar and multi-year project at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to fundamentally transform energy material R&D through a physics-informed data-driven approach. He also serves as the chief scientist and technical lead on grid energy storage R&D at PNNL. Wang joined PNNL in 2009 after receiving a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Elizabeth O'Connor , Chief Operating Officer

Elizabeth “Betsy” O’Connor is responsible for all operational aspects of ESRA, including financial operations; project management integration; procurement; property; environmental, safety, health and quality assurance; communications; and security. With more than 30 years of experience at Argonne in both the centralized financial organization and the project management organization, Betsy has a Bachelor of Arts degree in accounting from Benedictine University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Executive Program. She is a certified public accountant, a certified management accountant, and a project management professional.