Professor Emma Kendrick
Chair of Energy Materials
Staff profile for Professor Emma Kendrick, Professor of Energy Materials at the University of Birmingham.
Meet the Energy Materials Group Team
Group Lead
Dr Rob Sommerville
Assistant Professor in Mineral Processing
Staff profile for Dr Rob Sommerville.
Dr Dominic Spencer-Jolly
Assistant Professor
Profile of Dominic Spencer-Jolly, University of Birmingham
Dr Elizabeth Driscoll
Research Fellow
Dr Elizabeth (Lizzie) Driscoll is a research fellow within the Energy Materials Group chaired by Professor Emma Kendrick at the University of Birmingham, UK and working on the Faraday Institution's ReLiB project.
Technical support
Technical support
Ben Pye
Ben Pye graduated with a Batchelor's Degree in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham in 2010. After a brief time working for the UAE education authority's school inspection system, he joined a secondary school as the lead science technician.Ben joined the Energy Materials group in 2019 supporting the ReLiB and R2LiB recycling projects as a technician, and supported the group in a variety of other aspects. In 2020, Ben joined the Nextrode project, providing technical assistance in coating and printing.
Aviva D’Souza
Aviva currently works as a Senior Research Technician focusing on the recycling of Li-ion batteries. Aviva completed her MSc in Analytical Chemistry from St. Aloysius College in India. Prior to working at UoB, she worked as a chemistry lecturer at St. Aloysius College and as a Senior Research Technician at Cardiff University, and CSIR-CECRI (Karaikudi).
Mahfuza Khatun
Mahfuza Khatun works as a senior research technician on the ReLiB project (Recycling and Reuse of Li-Ion batteries), funded by the Faraday Institution. Mahfuza studied Chemical Engineering at University College London (UCL) graduating in 2016 and after working at Deloitte for 3 years, Mahfuza completed her Masters in Bioengineering at the University of Nottingham graduating in 2021. Since then, Mahfuza worked as a Lab Technician at a wound care manufacturing company before starting work at the University of Birmingham on the ReLib project.
Research fellows
Research fellows
David Burnett
David Burnett is part of the Energy Materials group, moving from Electrochemical Energy Materials within the Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) at WMG. Prior to this he was in the Chemistry Department of the University of Warwick, undertaking masters, doctorate and postdoctoral work under Professor Richard Walton. His research over the last 7 years was primarily focused on the synthesis and characterisation of mixed metal oxides, metal organic frameworks and co-ordination polymers, for use in PEM fuel cells and Biomass conversion. Before transitioning into battery research, with focus on electrode formulation and the production of demonstrator cells, working on several innovate projects, most recently the SCALE-UP project, aiming to produce both high power/high energy Li-ion cells. Now working on the CatMat project for the Faraday institution, with the aim of scaling up the synthesis of high energy density cathode materials for lithium ion batteries.
Lin Chen
Lin Chen received her PhD in Sciences and Technologies in Chemistry and Materials in Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Genova, Italy). She is currently holding a Research Fellow position the Energy Materials Group at The School of Metallurgy & Materials, conducting research on the development of materials for electrochemical devices like Na- and Li-ion batteries and has worked on many projects including the European funded project, SIMBA on sodium-ion battery manufacturing and recycling, and is currently working on the Faraday Insitution project, Nextrode.
Dr Hira Fazal
Dr Hira Fazal is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Energy Materials Group chaired by Prof. Emma Kendrick at the University of Birmingham, UK. Hira is currently working on a European funded project REVITALISE, looking at recycling and reuse of batteries materials, prior to this she worked on a large multi-institutional project called CATMAT for the Faraday institution, with the aim to develop green and sustainable synthesis routes to scaling up new cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, and to produce pouch cells for testing and characterisation. Hira obtained her PhD in Chemistry in 2023 from Shanghai Jiao Tong university, Shanghai. During her PhD, she also worked in Bogazici University, Istanbul, where she synthesized novel materials for Li-S batteries.
Dr Dominika Gastol
Dominika Gastol is a Faraday Institution Research Fellow working in the ReLiB Project at the University of Birmingham. Dominika completed her PhD in electrochemical microfabrication of titanium for medical devices in Precision Engineering Institute at Cranfield University.
She has an extensive experience in assembly and electrochemical testing of supercapacitors, hybrid devices and batteries. In her research, Dominika focuses on additive manufacturing of batteries of different chemistries, designed for an optimised performance and disassembly. Dominika is a recipient of an Early Career Award from Science and Technology Facilities Council in 2023 for the project dedicated to 3D printing of dual-chemistry Li-ion batteries.
Sam Hare
Dr Sam Hare is a Research Fellow who splits his time between the Energy Materials Group, and the Mixing and Multiphase Flow Group in Chemical Engineering, as part of the NEXTRODE project. With his work focusing on the formulation and mixing of electrode inks, he uses techniques such as Positron Emission Particle Tracking (PEPT) to study the mixing behaviour of slurries, as well as benchmarking industrially relevant mixer designs, to better understand processing parameters to assist in scale-up. His work also includes improved characterisation of battery materials to help understand the colloidal interactions that determine the slurry microstructure, rheology, and final electrochemical performance.
Dr Bowen Liu
Dr Bowen Liu is a research fellow with Prof. Emma Kendrick in the Energy Material Group at the University of Birmingham. He is working on the Horizon 2020’s SIMBA project, which focuses on recycling and reuse anode and cathode materials for sodium-ion battery.
Bowen obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2023 at the University of Southampton and his work focused on synthesis high-performance anode materials for sodium-ion batteries. He received his MSc degree in Electrochemistry in 2018 at the University of Southampton and completed his BSc degree in Chemistry in 2017 at Jilin University.
Dr Subha Samanta
Dr Subha Samanta is a Research Fellow working with Prof. Emma Kendrick (Energy Material Group) in the School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham. She is engaged with the Horizon 2020’s SIMBA project, which focuses on recycling and reuse anode and cathode materials for sodium-ion battery. Her research interests rely on using a wide range of experimental approaches to better understand battery technology.
She received her PhD in Materials Science on exploring fast-ion conduction in silica-based nanoglass systems from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India (2022), working under Professor Dipankar Chakravorty and Professor Saurav Giri, and her M.Sc. in Applied Physics from IIT (ISM) Dhanbad (2016). Following her PhD, Dr Samanta gained one year of postdoctoral research experience at the RISE-TCG CREST, India (2022) where her work was focussed on halide-based solid-state electrolytes with the group of Professor Satish Ogale and Dr Abhik Banerjee. She was recruited by the University of Birmingham in November 2023.
Tengfei Song
Tengfei Song joined the Energy Materials Group, University of Birmingham as a PhD student in September 2019 under the supervision of Prof Emma Kendrick. Currently, he is holding a research fellow position on the Faraday NEXGENNA project, conducting research on the development of cathode materials for Na-ion batteries.
Before joining the Energy Materials Group, he worked as an R&D Engineer of Lithium-ion Battery in the industry (China) for 4 years. His research focuses on advanced positive electrode materials for lithium-ion batteries and sodium-ion batteries.
Dongrui Xie
Dongrui is a Research Fellow in the School of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham. Prior to the University of Birmingham, he was a research assistant at Loughborough University, working on MAP-IT project from the Faraday Institution.
Dongrui has done his BSc in Materials Physics at Sichuan University, while he joined LCMP (Loughborough China Materials Partnership) project in 2016. He has obtained his MSc and PhD degree from Loughborough University in 2018 and 2023.
He is currently working on the innovations in metrology for the electrode manufacturing process within NEXTRODE project from the Faraday Institution. His research interests include ceramic material, additive manufacturing, microwave processing and battery manufacturing.
Mahwash Mahar Gul
Dr Mahwash Mahar Gul joined the Energy Materials Group, School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham, UK in May 2024. She is a research fellow working as a Battery Electrochemist and Test Engineer in the Multi-scale Modelling project funded by the Faraday Institution. Her work focuses on the parameterization of Li ion batteries. This involves the electrochemical, physical and chemical parameterisation of multi-scale physics-based models for lithium-ion batteries. She obtained her PhD in Environmental Chemistry from Fatima Jinnah Women University, Pakistan, with research focused on utilization of metal sulphide thin films as supercapacitor electrodes and their use in photocatalytic degradation of environmental contaminants. During her PhD, she also worked at the University of Manchester, UK as a visiting researcher at the Photon Science Institute.
Dr Manoj Ovhal
Dr Manoj Ovhal is a research fellow at the Energy Materials Group, chaired by Professor Emma Kendrick at the School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom and working on the Multi-Scale Modelling of batteries project funded by Faraday Institution’s, which focuses on extracting the physical, chemical, electrical and electrochemical parameters using multi scale experiments to validate battery P2D models.
He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering from Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju, South Korea, in August 2021. His PhD focuses on developing flexible and transparent energy storage devices using printing techniques under the supervision of Professor Jae-Wook Kang. He received a Master of Science in Physics, specialised in materials science and technology, from the University of Pune, India, in June 2014.
Before joining UOB in February 2024, he completed his first postdoc in South Korea. During his postdoc, he consecutively received the Brain Korea 21+ Fellowship and National Research Fellowship.
Wilgner Lima Da Silva
Mark Stockham
Chen Mi
Lucas Sita
Postdoctoral Researchers
Postdoctoral Researchers
Aviva D’Souza
Aviva currently works as a Senior Research Technician focusing on the recycling of Li-ion batteries. Aviva completed her MSc in Analytical Chemistry from St. Aloysius College in India. Prior to working at UoB, she worked as a chemistry lecturer at St. Aloysius College and as a Senior Research Technician at Cardiff University, and CSIR-CECRI (Karaikudi).
Panch Poologalingam
Panch Poologalingam is a PhD student in the Energy Materials Group at the University of Birmingham, working under the supervision of Professor Emma Kendrick since September 2024. His research focuses on the design and optimisation of electrode slurries for lithium-ion battery manufacturing, with particular emphasis on slurry rheology, microstructure, and their impact on electrochemical performance.
Prior to starting his PhD, Panch worked as a colourant formulation chemist at Dulux, where he developed pigment dispersion systems, and later as a materials scientist at Surrey NanoSystems, contributing to the development of Vantablack coatings. His multidisciplinary background bridges industrial formulation science with emerging energy technologies, and he is now applying this expertise to investigate how binders and particle interactions influence electrode processing and performance.
Chenglong Wu
Chenglong Wu is currently a PhD student under the supervision of Prof Emma Kendrick in the School of Metallurgy and Materials at the University of Birmingham. He completed his bachelor's degree in Materials Science and Technology at University of Science and Technology Beijing, then received his master's degree with Distinction in the School of Metallurgy and Materials at University of Birmingham. His research is to investigate new cathode materials and optimize synthesis routes for next-generation lithium-ion batteries in CATMAT project.
Irma Houmadi
Irma is a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, looking at developing novel sensing methodologies to monitor battery performance. She completed her MSci in Chemistry at the University of Birmingham and after graduation, worked as an Engineer at WMG in the Energy Innovation Centre, most recently in the Battery Scale-Up team. Now, Irma is interested in finding novel ways to monitor battery and material performance over time for aerospace applications, using additional instruments such as optical sensors and reference electrodes.
Jacob Fenwick
Jacob joined the Energy Materials group in 2023 after completing his undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering at the University of Birmingham. He is currently studying with the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Formulation Engineering and working on the 3D-printing of battery electrodes. This work he is conducting with support from the MTC with the aim to produce high-performance batteries whilst reducing the proportion of critical materials used.
Kawinkorn Iamrod
Kawinkorn has a background in electrical engineering and chemical engineering (MSc in Global Chemical Energy Technologies and Systems from the University of Birmingham) and is pursuing a PhD supervised by Professor Emma Kendrick. His research focuses on the fast-charging features of hybridisation between supercapacitors and battery technologies aligned with multi-scale modelling. The supercapacitors and batteries are parameterised and modelled for the hybrid system between two devices, focusing on the fast-charging features.
Marcus Tuchel
Marcus Tuchel is a PhD student in the Birmingham Energy Materials Group, under the supervision of Prof. Emma Kendrick and Prof. Gerard Fernando. He is an associated PhD as part of the Faraday Institution MSM project. His research focuses on investigating Li-ion batteries using in-operando sensors to measure processes directly and novel experimental techniques to explore mechanisms. He hopes to use these methodologies to optimise the formation process, determine a battery’s state of health, and for the early detection of faults.
Reda Malakauskaitė
PhD student – NEXGENNA
PhD student working on challenges associated with upscaling novel cathode materials for sodium-ion batteries. Reda is also looking into developing high voltage electrolytes for supercapacitors and hybrid energy storage devices. Previously, Reda worked at Umicore R&D where she was a member of solid-state battery development team.