Meet the team
Post Doctoral Researchers

University of Oxford
Dr. Junfu Bu
Dr. Junfu Bu earned his PhD degree in Materials Science at KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Sweden. His research interests are mainly focused on Electrochemistry, e.g. Li-ion batteries and Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs). Currently, his research work is focus on spray deposition and spark plasma sintering used for all-solid-state Li-ion batteries manufacturing.

University of Oxford
Dr. Peiyu Chen
Peiyu Chen obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford in Materials. During her DPhil, she worked with Professor Martin Castell on the synthesis and characterisation of 2D nanocrystals. Peiyu now continues as a postdoctoral researcher in the same research group, and her current research is dedicated towards developing a deeper scientific understanding of the wetting behaviour of solid lithium (Li) or sodium (Na) on the cathode ceramic material using scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM).

University of Liverpool
Dr. Yun Dang
Yun obtained her PhD at the University of Sheffield, where she worked with Professor Anthony West on the synthesis, defect chemistry and electrical properties of rutile-based materials. Yun joined Professor Matthew Rosseinsky group in September 2019 at the University of Liverpool. She currently works on the synthesis and characterisation of solid electrolyte materials for Li-ion batteries.

University of Oxford
Dr. Ed Darnbrough
Ed is joining the SOLBAT project as a Career Development Fellow looking to apply his skills and strengths in microscale testing to the challenges of understanding the mechanical properties of the new materials involved in realising a solid state battery.
Ed has a background in novel in-situ experimentation of hazardous materials from post doctoral work related to the nuclear sector at both Bristol and Oxford. Ed's proven in-situ techniques of measuring conductivity, following corrosion with X-rays, observing in SEM kinetics of growth and mechanical testing of microscale cantilevers will all be adapted and applied to solid state battery materials.

University of Sheffield
Dr. Hany El-Shinawi
Hany completed his PhD in solid state chemistry in 2010 at the University of Birmingham with Professor Colin Greaves on the synthesis and characterization of functional oxide materials. He was then awarded Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship which he held at Justus Liebig University (Germany) from 2011 to 2014, working on battery materials with Professor Jürgen Janek. In December 2015, Hany joined Professor Serena Corr group at the University of Glasgow, where he currently works on the synthesis and characterization of battery materials.

University of Oxford
Dr. Xiangwen Gao
Xiangwen Gao obtained his DPhil degree from University of Oxford in 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Peter Bruce, where he mainly worked on aprotic lithium-oxygen batteries. After his DPhil studies, he worked as a postdoc researcher in Prof. John Goodenough’s group and his research was about NASICON-structured solid electrolytes. Xiangwen has started working in SOLBAT projects since 2020, and he now focuses on understanding cathode capacity fading and cell failure mechanism in all-solid-state lithium batteries.

University of Oxford
Dr. Georgina Gregory
Dr Georgina Gregory completed her PhD degree at the University of Bath. Her project focused on the synthesis of polycarbonates from sugars and carbon dioxide for biomedical applications. She joined the Williams Group in 2018 working on block copolymers for thermoplastic elastomers. Within SOLBAT, she will be working on the synthesis of polymer electrolytes for a new generation of solid-state batteries.

University College London
Dr. Shuai Hao
I am Shuai Hao in University College London. I am in Prof. Paul Shearing’s and Prof. Dan Brettt’s group as a PDRA. I am interested in studying the morphology changes in solid state batteries by advanced test technologies.

University of Oxford
Dr. Hyeon-Jeong Lee
Dr. Hyeon Jeong Lee completed her PhD degree in 2018 at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Her research was the investigation of active materials for aqueous energy storage/conversion applications with synchrotron X-ray analyses. Hyeon Jeong joined Prof. Mauro Pasta’s research group at the University of Oxford in January 2019 as a post-doctoral research associate for the SOLBAT project. She is investigating halide-based solid electrolytes as well as high voltage cathode materials.

University of Oxford
Dr. Guanchen Li
I am a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford. I am developing continuum transport models to study the failure mechanism of solid-state Lithium-ion batteries. I am primarily interested in modelling the electrochemomechanics near metal/electrolyte interfaces to understand the dendrite nucleation process.
I received my bachelor degrees in Physics from Peking University, China, in 2011. I was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech, USA, in 2015. My doctoral research focused on the fundamental theory and modelling of far-from-equilibrium phenomena (e.g., chemical reaction, heat and mass diffusion) using a novel nonequilibrium thermodynamic framework named steepest entropy ascent quantum thermodynamics (SEAQT).

University of Oxford
Dr. Boyang Liu
Boyang Liu received his bachelor degree (Optoelectronic Engineering) from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China in 2014. He received his Ph. D. degree (Electronics Engineering) from the University of Maryland in the USA in 2018. During Ph.D. study under the supervision of Prof. Liangbing Hu, his research was on developing safe Li-metal batteries by applying garnet-type solid-state electrolyte with advanced interface treatment and dense-porous structural design. His Ph.D. work involved ionic liquid and printable gel polymer electrolyte as well.
Boyang has started working in SOLBAT with Prof. Peter Bruce in the University of Oxford since February 2019, working on solid-state lithium batteries. His current research topic includes understanding the mechanism of cathode capacity decay in the cycling of solid-state lithium-ion batteries and preventing the Li metal dendrites.
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University of Liverpool
Dr. Ioanna Maria Pateli
Ioanna Maria Pateli is a licensed metallurgical engineer from Greece. She obtained her bachelor’s and Master’s degree in 2016 from the National and Technical University of Athens with distinction. Then, she was awarded her PhD with title “Metal oxides processing using deep eutectic solvents” from the University of Leicester in 2020. Directly after that she moved to Liverpool to start working as a Project Scientist with focus on industrial led project related to Li S batteries. From November 2020 she started working as a PDRA in the SOLBAT project with focus on the In-situ spectroscopic study of the cathode-solid electrolyte interfaces within all solid state batteries.

University of Cambridge
Dr. Ushasi Roy
Dr. Ushasi Roy earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. For her PhD, she worked on microstructure-sensitive multiscale modelling of fracture in polycrystalline metals. She joined Prof. Norman Fleck's group at the University of Cambridge in January, 2020 after successfully defending her PhD. She currently works on degradation mechanisms of solid state Li-ion batteries.

University of Liverpool
Dr. Elvis Shoko
I joined Prof. Matthew Rosseinsky’s research group in January 2019 as a research associate for the SOLBAT project. My focus is crystal structure prediction for the discovery of new solid electrolytes for batteries. I completed my PhD at the University of Queensland (Australia) where I employed model Hamiltonians to study electron correlations in cerium oxides for solid-oxide fuel cells under the supervision of Prof. Ross H. McKenzie. I subsequently joined the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) as a postdoctoral fellow, respectively. In my postdoctoral work I have applied density functional theory (DFT) methods (electronic structure, lattice dynamics, and ab initio molecular dynamics) to study a range of energy materials including for solid electrolyte, thermoelectric, and photovoltaic applications.

University of Oxford
Dr. Jin Su
Jin Su obtained his PhD degree from the Department of Chemical System Engineering at the University of Tokyo under the supervision of Prof. Kazunari Domen in Sep. 2017. His PhD research focused on electrochemistry for solar fuel production. He previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Japan. His research was atomic layer deposition for solid-state ion batteries. He is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford working with Prof. Chris Grovenor for the SOLBAT project. His research is thin-film materials for Lithium-ion batteries.

University of Oxford
Dr. Chris Thomas
I completed my PhD at the University of Liverpool with Professor Matthew Rosseinsky on the Synthesis and characterization of new functional metal oxides in 2011. I then worked as a postdoc first at the University of Oslo for Professors Fjellvåg and Sjåstad on understanding geomagnetic materials and intercalation behaviour of Ruddlesden Popper phases. I then moved to Aalto University in Helsinki working for Professor Karppinen on high pressure synthesis methods and also intercalation in titanoniobates. In May 2019 I joined Dr Edmund Cussens group at the University of Sheffield, where I currently work on the synthesis and characterization of battery materials.

University of St. Andrews
Dr. Mihkel Vestli
I obtained my Ph.D. degree in Professor Enn Lust´s group at University of Tartu in Estonia. During my Ph.D. period I studied different functional layers for solid oxide fuel cell. Since August 2017 I have been a postdoctoral fellow in Professor John T. S. Irvine´s group at University of St. Andrews. My main focus lies now on fabrication of solid-state batteries within the SOLBAT project. My research interests are synthesis and characterisation of solid-state conductors, ceramic processing and solid-state electrochemistry.