Congratulations to Erick on his award for giving one of the best poster presentations during the 6th US Total Scattering School at Oak Ridge National Laboratory! His poster was about how total scattering techniques can be used to characterize short-range ordering in disordered rock-salt (DRX) cathodes and how it changes as a function of cycling and doping.

Congratulations to Raphaële on receiving the 2024 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award from The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation! These awards are given to early career faculty who have "created an outstanding independent body of scholarship, and are deeply committed to education." The accompanying $100,000 grant will support our group in our investigation of solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries.

Very proud of Tyler Pennebaker, a 2nd year PhD student in the group, who received the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Tyler uses NMR spectroscopy to study solid electrolytes and solid-state batteries in an effort to develop devices that are safer and more energy-dense than the current lithium-ion technology.  Congrats, Tyler!

Many congratulations to Dr. Gonzalez-Correa on successfully defending his PhD! Elio's research has investigated the intercalation mechanics of Na-based Super Ionic Conductor (NASICON) materials for use in next-generation batteries. We'll miss him but wish him well as he transitions to work in the battery industry.

Congratulations to Dr. Nguyen on successfully defending his dissertation! Howie's research has been groundbreaking in the development of operando EPR and magnetometry of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. We wish him all the best as he continues to perform battery research in industry.

Prof. Clement hosted a heartfelt social to bid adieu to our group's graduating PhDs. It was a delightful evening filled with cheer and laughter as we celebrated their achievements. We'll miss them all deeply and wish them the best in their future endeavors.

Congratulations to Elias and Vincent! Elias defended his work on solid electrolytes on Nov 15 and Vincent defended his work on disordered rock salt cathodes less than a week after on the 21st. Both will be sorely missed!

Hanna recently attended the 25th National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering, hosted by Argonne and Oakridge National Labs. As part of this two-week program, she attended seminars on cutting-edge neutron and x-ray scattering techniques and gained hands-on experience with beamline scattering experiments while networking with leading experts in these fields.

Raphaële has been awarded the 'Rising Star Award' by Materials Today and the 'ISE Prize in Electrochemical Materials Science' from the International Society of Electrochemistry. Congrats to her for winning these prestigious awards!

More info can be found at the Materials Today and ISE websites.

Many congratulations to Emily as she successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation on June 13th and was hooded on the 16th, becoming the first Ph.D. student to graduate from our group! She will work as a postdoc in our group for a few months before moving on to do bigger and better things.

Congratulations to Emily for winning the EERA JP ES Award for having the best poster presentation at the ICNaB 2022 conference!

More information about the award can be found here.

Emily recently received the prestigious Kramer Award for her oral presentation at MROP 2022 and Howie received the best poster prize at the Spring BASF California Research Alliance Review. Keeping the group proud, congrats!

Our undergraduate researcher Allyson gave a talk on how to land internships in the battery industry. She has previously interned at Tesla and Panasonic Energy. This summer, she'll be working at QuantumScape! Allyson hopes to continue helping her college peers get industry opportunities.

The NSF has selected Professor Raphaële Clément as one of this year's CAREER Award recipients. This is one of the most prestigious awards given to junior faculty nationwide for exemplifying the role of teacher-scholars through research and education. Congratulations to Prof. Clément!

The Current's feature on this achievement: https://www.news.ucsb.edu/2022/020522/sodium-solution

Congratulations to Emily for bagging the Silver Medal Student Presentation award at the 1st Energy & Informatics International Forum for her talk on sodium metal fluorides!

Read more about the forum or award here: https://www.infosyenergy.titech.ac.jp/Academy/intl_forum2021/award.html

Our very own Professor Clément gave an ECS webinar titled “From order to disorder: NMR insights into ionic conduction in battery materials" on October 27. A recording of this talk is available online at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3111169723844313101. Once you register, the video will start automatically. The replay is also available on the Physics World webinar page.

Euan Bassey, a PhD student from the Grey group in Cambridge, visited UCSB for a couple weeks to carry out operando EPR measurements on his cathode materials with Howie Nguyen.

This past week, our undergraduate researcher Wen Jin presented her poster at UCSB's undergraduate research symposium. She was mentored by our very own Emily Foley under MRL's FLAM, a summer research program. This fall, as Wen goes into her sophomore year as a chemical engineering major, she will continue to conduct research with the Clément group. Congratulations Wen!

This past summer, Allyson our undergraduate researcher interned at Gigafactory Nevada. She worked with Panasonic Energy of North America's materials engineering team as they produced cells for Tesla Model 3's. Congratulations on completing your internship, Allyson!

This year, Allyson founded a summer research program called Climatry. Its mission was to provide graduate student mentors for Philippine Science High School students who are required to do scientific research. Through Climatry, these students come up with a research proposal related to climate change over the summer.

Ashley and Emily were selected to be mentors for Climatry. Both received phenomenal reviews from their mentees whom they guided through their research proposals thoroughly. We are proud of these three scientists for their hard work in giving back!

Have you ever wondered why batteries catch fire ? Elias explains the phenomenon of thermal runaway, i.e., uncontrolled battery heating in batteries with a nail penetration test.

Videos of this demonstration and where Elias tells us about his journey to grad school can be found here. This is an outreach initiative in partnership with Mrs. Daniella Duran, a chemistry teacher at Valencia High School. 

Our latest news and updates are now posted on twitter. Follow us @ ClementGroupSB! 

Despite COVID-19, our graduate student Elias gave a lithium-ion battery presentation to the 4th-6th graders of Goleta Family School, as part of the MRL MRSEC solar car workshop outreach activities. Thank you for your dedication, Elias!

This summer, our undergraduate Aryan will be partaking in the prestigious Future Leaders in Advanced Materials (FLAM) program conducted by the UCSB MRL. He will be working alongside Emily to conduct research in our lab. Congratulations Aryan!

For the Spring 2020 quarter, our undergraduate Kelly will be part of the prestigious RISE (Research Internships in Science and Engineering) program by the UCSB MRL. She will be working with Elias on data analysis for our rocksalt halide solid electrolytes project. Congratulations Kelly!

We are proud to announce that Howie, a 2nd year graduate student, received Honorable Mention for NSF GRFP 2020! Howie is a reliable and consistent researcher and deserves this achievement and beyond.

Huge congratulations to our 2nd year graduate student Emily for becoming NSF's Graduate Research Fellow 2020! Her hard work in and out of the lab paid off and the entire group is proud of her. Keep it up Emily!

For two days, Raphaële, Emily, Elizabeth, Allyson, and Kelly teach girls how to make lemon batteries. Emily gave a lecture on how batteries work, while Raphaële answered questions about what it's like to be a woman in science. This event was made possible by Girls Inc., and after-school program that allows middle school girls to explore science. Thank you for inviting us!

The Clément group goes to Captain Fatty's in Goleta to celebrate the new year and the addition of Vincent Wu and Alexis Manche to the group. Happy 2020!

Congratulations to Professor Clément for giving the Fall 2019 Dow Distinguished Lecture! She was nominated for the honor by the Graduate Students for Diversity in Science (GSDS) at UCSB. As the recipient of the title, she gave two talks on November 20, 2019, one about the Clément Group research and the other about diversity in STEM.

Our undergraduate Allyson was selected to present her research on Li-ion battery cathode microwave synthesis method for the SACNAS 2019 conference at the Honolulu Convention Center in Hawaii.

To celebrate the arrival of several new members, the entire group had a bbq, along with guest Dr. Tom Casey.

The solid-state materials community, along with Emily and Elio, gathered to share advances in the design, preparation and characterization of novel electronic, optical, and magnetic materials.

Howie was selected to participate in the 2019 EPR summer school hosted by IES/SharedEPR from July 17-21.  There, EPR experts from different fields led practicals and lectured on the underlying principles of EPR. We will apply these lessons to the development of an electrochemical EPR probe for the study of battery materials. Here is a photo of lecturers and participants on a Rocky Mountain excursion following the school.

https://sharedepr.org/epr-summer-school-2019/

As the school year came to an end, the Clément group celebrated a productive year at the Lama Dog Tap Room in Downtown Santa Barbara. Among the recent highlights the group commemorated were: Elio's NSF fellowship, Allyson's Gorman scholarship, and Pete's arrival.

Great job everyone and enjoy your summer!

Elio was selected by the directors of the Center for Science and Education Partnerships (CSEP) as a research mentor for their Apprentice Researchers (AR) program. As a mentor, Elio will closely work with Dos Pueblos high school student Noor Guefroudj, teaching her fundamental research techniques.

Welcome, Noor!

http://ar-csep.cnsi.ucsb.edu/

Dr. Peter Richardson has recently joined the group to develop and characterize polymeric ionic liquids and other solid state electrolytes for use in battery applications. Previously a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of York in NMR hyperpolarization for industrial applications, he obtained his PhD at the University of Leeds, where his research focussed on using NMR to understand ion dynamics in polymer gel electrolytes.

Congratulations to Elio for receiving the prestigious NSF GRFP Fellowship for his work on solid electrolytes for fuel cell applications!

Kelly, a second year undergraduate in Chemistry, and Yuefan, a third year undergraduate in Chemical Engineering, have recently joined the group. 

Welcome Kelly and Yuefan!

Congratulations to Allyson for being selected as a Gorman Research Scholar! This program will enable her to pursue her undergraduate research over the summer of 2019, working on a sustainable, low energy synthesis route to NMC-type cathodes.

http://gorman-csep.cnsi.ucsb.edu

Dr. Raynald Giovine, who completed his PhD on the study of metal-organic frameworks using solid-state NMR at the University of Lille, France, has just joined the group. He will be investigating cation-disordered lithium transition metal oxide cathodes using advanced NMR techniques.

The Clément group made a good showing at the annual Tony Evans 5K race, by winning the first female (Emily) and first faculty (Raphaële) places. The memorial run celebrates the life of Professor Tony Evans (1942-2009), who enjoyed running, served as the founding chair of the Materials Department and is an inspiration to all who crossed his path.