Lightning Talk Challenge Winners

There are more than 1,800 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers involved in the current Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC), BES energy storage and fuels from sunlight Energy Innovation Hubs, BES Computational Materials Sciences awards (CMS), and BES Computational Chemical Sciences awards (CCS).

In 2023, the students and postdoctoral researchers involved in the current Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC), BES energy storage and fuels from sunlight Energy Innovation Hubs (Hubs), BES Computational Materials Sciences awards (CMS), and BES Computational Chemical Sciences awards (CCS) were challenged to present their center’s research or idea within a 100-second “Lightning Talk” as part of the 2023 Virtual EFRC-Hub-CMS-CCS PI Meeting held on October 18-20, and October 26, 2023. Each center was invited to nominate a student or postdoctoral researcher to showcase the center’s learnings or key highlights of research outcomes.

The lightning talks were separated into three meeting days and organized by research topical areas.

DOE’s EFRC management team selected 3 lightning talk winners from each the meeting days, shown below in no particular order:

September 19, 2023 (Advanced Manufacturing; Hydrogen; Separations; Solar)

Kyleigh Range, an undergraduate at Cal State East Bay

Characterization Of Bacterial Microcompartment Shell Formation Through Denaturant-Induced Sheet Dismantling And Subsequent Shell Self-Assembly

Kyleigh Range¹, Joshua MacCready², Markus Sutter^1,2, Sam Snyder³, Arinita Pramanik¹, Nina Ponomarenko³, Daniel Ducat^2,4, Paul Ashby¹, Michaela TerAvest⁴, Corie Ralston^1
1Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; ²Michigan State University; ³Argonne National Laboratory

EFRC - CCBC

Student and post-doc authors of this work, left to right, as listed in author list.

Photocatalysis in a New Light: A Biohybrid Approach for Improved Reactivity with Tunable Low-Energy Light Excitation

Paul T. Cesana¹, Beryl X. Li², Claire G. Page^2,3, Samuel G. Shepard⁴, Stephen I. Ting^2,5, Dvir Harris¹, Stephanie M. Hart¹, Courtney M. Olson¹, Megan A. Emmanuel², Jesus I. Martinez Alvarado², Minjung Son¹, Talia J. Steiman², Felix N. Castellano⁴, Abigail G. Doyle^2,5, Todd K. Hyster^2,3, David W. C. MacMillan², Gabriela S. Schlau-Cohen^1
1Massachusetts Institute of Technology; ²Princeton University; ³Cornell University; ⁴North Carolina State University; ⁵University of California, Los Angeles

EFRC – BioLEC

Sarah A. Pfaff

Xylan Plays a Critical Role in Patterned Secondary Cell Wall Formation

Sarah A. Pfaff, Edward R. Wagner, Ying Gu, Daniel J. Cosgrove
The Pennsylvania State University

EFRC – CLSF

September 20, 2023 (Energy Storage; Environmental Management; Nuclear; Subsurface; Water)

Sean Mills, University of California, Berkeley

The Duality in Damage: Multi-Scale Investigations Into Corrosion and Irradiation Effects in Salt-Facing Nuclear Reactor Materials

Sean H. Mills^1,2, Ryan D. Hayes¹, Ho Lun Chan³, Nathan Bieberdorf¹, Minsung Hong¹, Elena Romanovskaia³, Alexandra M. Kennedy¹, Laurent Capolungo⁴, Mark Asta¹, John R. Scully³, Peter Hosemann¹, Raluca O. Scarlat¹, Andrew M. Minor^1,2
1University of California Berkeley, ²Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ³University of Virginia, ⁴ Los Alamos National Laboratory

EFRC – FUTURE

Catherine Haslam

Mechanochemical Phenomena at the Alkali Metal/Solid Electrolyte Interface

Catherine Haslam¹, S. Sandoval², B. Vishnugopi³, J. Sakamoto¹, D. Mitlin⁴, P. Mukherjee³, M. McDowell^2
1University of Michigan; ²Georgia Institute of Technology; ³Purdue University; ⁴University of Texas, Austin

EFRC – MUSIC

(from left) Everett Zofchak, Rahul Sujanani, Nico Marioni, and Aubrey Quigley

Mechanisms underlying mixed salt partitioning in uncharged poly(ethylene oxide)-based membranes

Everett S. Zofchak, Aubrey E. Quigley, Jordyn G. Yoh, Kevin K. Reimund, Nathaniel A. Lynd, Benny D. Freeman, Venkat Ganesan
University of Texas at Austin

EFRC – M-WET

September 26, 2023 (Microelectronics; QIS)

from left: Kelly Woo and Mohamadali Malakoutian

Leveraging the resilience of diamond with its unique material properties towards Next Generation Grid innovation

Kelly Woo¹, Mohamadali Malakoutian¹, Matthias Muehle², Franz Koeck⁴, Timothy Grotjohn³, Stephen Goodnick⁴, Robert Nemanich⁴, Srabanti Chowdhury^1
1Stanford University, ²Fraunhofer USA Center, ³Michigan State University, ⁴Arizona State University

EFRC – ULTRA

Chaira Trovatello

Layered semiconductors are changing the game in quantum information

Chiara Trovatello^1
1Columbia University

EFRC – Pro-QM

(from left) Mit H. Naik, Hongyuan Li, Woochang Kim, Chen Hu and Yusuf Shaidu

Diverse Nature of Excitonic States in Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Moiré Superlattices

Mit H. Naik^1,2, Hongyuan Li^1,2, Chen Hu^1,2, Woochang Kim^1,2, Yusuf Shaidu^1,2, Ziyu Xiang^1,2, Jeffrey B. Neaton^1,2, Felipe H. da Jornada³, Feng Wang^1,2, and Steven G. Louie^1,2
1University of California at Berkeley; ²Lawrence Berkeley National Lab; ³Stanford University

CMS – C2SEPEM

Information on all of the lightning talks can be found in the Lightning Talk Challenge Page, and the lightning talks abstracts can be found on pages 6-74 of the PI Meeting Program Book.