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November, 2023
Ryan Tagawa (Ph.D. student) joined the group.

October 24, 2023
Jakob Reinke passed his Qualifying Examination and has been admitted to PhD Candidacy.

September 13, 2023
We are at the Ph.D. orientation poster session. Barnett Group Poster

August 21, 2023
Happy time at Chinatown 🙂

August 18, 2023
Jerren Grimes successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Durability and Performance of Reversible Solid Oxide Cells: Role of Infiltration and Pressurization”, and will work in PEM fuel cells! Congratulations, Dr. Grimes!

July 2023
SungHyun Jeon (visiting scholar from KAIST, Korea) visited the group.

June 9, 2023
Saahir Ganti-Agrawal (B.S.) graduated and will start his Ph.D. at MIT in the fall! Congratulations, Saahir!

June 9, 2023
Dalton Cox successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Characterization of Polarization-Induced Microstructure Evolution in Solid Oxide Electrochemical Cells”, and will join Bloom Energy in San Jose, CA starting in July 2023! Congratulations, Dr. Dalton!

May 28 – June 2, 2023
The Barnett group was at the 243rd ECS Meeting with the 18th International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC-XVIII) in Boston, MA. Yubo Zhang, Jerren Grimes, Dalton Cox, Jakob Reinke, and Saahir Ganti-Agrawal gave awesome oral presentations for the SOFC-XVIII conference.

May 19, 2023
Jerren Grimes presented in the Hillard Symposium on “Enhancement of Ni-YSZ Fuel Electrode Performance via Pressurization and GDC Infiltration” at Northwestern University.

May 2, 2023
The Barnett Group participated in the “Lithium Ion Battery, from a Dream to Domination of Energy Storage – Future Materials Challenges” seminar by Prof. M. Stanley Whittingham, 2019 Nobel Laureate.

March 10, 2023
Jawayria Mujtaba and Hohan Bae (Post-doctoral) joined the group.

January 13, 2023
Group dinner celebrating late New Year!!

November 9, 2022
Pattiya Pibulchinda (Ph.D. student) joined the group.

March 16, 2022
Travis Schmauss successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Nanoscale Surface Engineering of Solid Oxide Electrochemical Cell Electrodes for Stability Enhancement, Characterization, and Reactivation”, and will join Bloom Energy in San Jose, CA starting in April 2022!

January 2022
Post-doc Elahe Moazzen has accepted a position at Nissan Technical Center North America!

December 8, 2021
Nick Geisendorfer successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Enhancing Solid Oxide Fuel Electrode Performance via Structural and Exsolution Approaches for Operation in Multiple Fuel Environments”, and will join Bloom Energy in San Jose, CA starting in January 2022!

October, 2021
We are all still alive and well!

March, 2020
Post-doc Tim Yang welcomes a beautiful baby girl into the world!

January 17, 2020
Elahe Moazzen joins the group as lead battery post-doc.

October 9, 2019
Nick Geisendorfer passed his Qualifying Examination and has been admitted to PhD Candidacy.

September 24, 2019
Previous high school student researchers Alexia Popescu and Jacqueline Wang have become Northwestern undergraduates, Class of 2023!

July 22, 2019
Marco Marchese (Visiting Scholar, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy) visited the group.

July 1, 2019
Shannon Kollasch (M.S. student) joined the group.

June 21, 2019
Yvonne Chart (B.S.) graduated and will train for the 2020 Olympics. Peter Hosbein (B.S.) graduated and will start working for Gore in Delaware.

June 3, 2019
Matthew Lu successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation “Degradation and Performance of Oxygen Electrodes for Low and Intermediate Temperature Reversible Solid Oxide Cells for Energy Storage” and will start working for Exponent in Menlo Park, CA.

May 31, 2019
Qinyuan Liu successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation “The Electrochemical Performance and Structural Evolution of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Ni-YSZ Fuel Electrodes” and will stay at Northwestern as a post-doctoral fellow in the Barnett group.

May 24, 2019
Xiankai Yu successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation “Interfacial Electrochemistry and Surface Modification of Thin-Film LiMn2O4Cathodes in Lithium Ion Batteries” and will start working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA.

May 11, 2019
The Barnett group participated in the 3rd annual MSSA 5K, congratulations to the team: Matt, Dalton, Yvonne, Tim, Alexia, Xiankai, Jerren, Nick, Peter, and Scott!

Pre-race

Post-race!

May 7, 2019
Alan Xue (B.S. student) joined the group.

April 16, 2019
Hao Chen (M.S. student) joined the group.

March 16, 2019
Alexia received first place in the Chicagoland regional Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (JSHS). She qualified for the National JSHS competition, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico and also received a cash scholarship.

February 9, 2019
Travis Schmauss and Matthew Lu traveled to Bariloche, Argentina to work with Professor Liliana V. Mogni at Centro AtĂłmico Bariloche for one month.

January 24, 2019
Jakob Reinke (B.S./B.A. student) joined the group.

January 2, 2019
Tianrang (Tim) Yang joined the group as a postdoctoral fellow.

December 13, 2018
Alexia Popescu and Jacqueline Wang (Travis’s mentee) were accepted to Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering (Early Decision).

December 10, 2018
Julian Ascolani-Yael returned to Bariloche, Argentina.

December 6, 2018
Travis Schmauss passed his Ph.D. qualifying exam.

October 19, 2018
Jerren Grimes and Dalton Cox (Ph.D. students) joined the group.

October 16, 2018
Samuel Asa (B.S. student) joined the group.

October 1, 2018
Yining Liu (M.S. student) and Peter Hosbein (B.S. student) joined the group.

September 27, 2018
Pitawat (Eng) Mahawattanangul (B.S. student) joined the group.

September 6, 2018
Travis Schmauss became a Cluster Fellow of the Institute of Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN), securing two quarters of tuition and stipend from the institute in support of his graduate work.

September 4, 2018
Julian Ascolani-Yael joined the group as a visiting Ph.D. student from Instituto Balseiro, Bariloche, Argentina working on “Improvement of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell performance by electrode surface modification through nano-particle decoration.”

August 20, 2018
Sam Miller successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis “Materials by Design: A Combined Computational and Experimental Approach to Thermoelectrics” and will start working for Owens Corning in Granville, OH.

July 15, 2018
Martina Trini returned to DTU.

June 22, 2018
Juveria Masood (B.S.) graduated and will start working for McMaster Carr in Chicago, IL. Alex Furlong (B.S.) graduated and will start working for Applied Thin Films in Skokie, IL.

May 24, 2018
Hongqian (Sharon) Wang successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis “Analysis of Electrochemical Performance and Degradation of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Cathodes” and will start working for SF Motors in Santa Clara, CA.

May 15, 2018
Martini Trini joined the group as a visiting Ph.D. student from Technical University of Denmark (DTU) working on “Modelling of Degradation Processes in High Temperature Electrolysis Cells.”

May 6, 2018
The Barnett group finished 3rd out of 19 research groups for the 2nd annual MSSA 5K in the normalized category. Congratulations to the team of Alexia Popescu, Beom-Kyeong Park, Hongqian Wang, Marysol Encarnacion, Matthew Lu, Qinyuan Liu, Scott Barnett, Travis Schmauss, and Xiankai Yu!

April 28, 2018
Alexia Popescu competed in the Illinois Junior Academy of Science state science fair in Paper and Poster Session. She won the Best in Category- Materials Science award, the USG corporation recognition award, and the Paper Session Top Ten award.

March 10, 2018
Alexia Popescu competed in the Illinois Junior Academy of Science regional science fair with her project “Deconvoluting Impedance Mechanisms in Emerging Fuel Cell Material.” She qualified for the state science fair and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. She won the NASA Earth System Science Award and the Walton Sustainability Solutions Award from Arizona State University.

February 20, 2018
Dr. Shanlin Zhang returned to Xi’an Jiaotong University.

February 1, 2018
Tianfu (Dave) Wang (B.S. studednt) joined the group.

January 17, 2018
John Pieterse (B.S. student) joined the group.

December 9, 2017
Kunli Yang (M.S.) graduated and will return to work for the group as an intern.

December 4, 2017
Dr. Beom-Kyeong Park joined the group as a postdoctoral fellow.

November 30, 2017
Dr. Justin Railsback completed his post-doc and began working at Intel, Portland, OR

October, 2017
Prof. Scott Barnett has been made a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) at the 232nd ECS meeting. Congratulations to Prof. Barnett!

August 30, 2017
Sun Hee Choi left the group and returned to Korea Institute of Science and Technology.

August 6, 2017
Barnett Group Party and tennis matches!

June 16, 2017
Calvin Ng (B.S.) graduated and began working for Discover Financial Services in Riverwoods, IL.

June 12, 2017
Alexia Popescu (Niles West H.S.) joined the group.

May 7, 2017
Barnett Group finishes in 2nd place out of 22 groups at the 1st annual MSSA 5K! Congratulations to the team of Matthew Lu, Yvonne Chart, Alex Furlong, Xiankai Yu, Kunli Yang, Marysol EncarnaciĂłn, Travis Schmauss, Hongqian Wang, and Qinyuan Liu!

March 29, 2017
Yvonne Chart (B.S. student) joined the group.

February 21, 2017
Dr. Shanlin Zhang (Visiting Researcher) joined the group.

December 14, 2016
Kuan-Hua Chiu (M.S.) graduated and began working for Angstron Materials in Dayton, Ohio.

December 10, 2016
Justin G. Railsback successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis “Performance and Durability of Oxygen Electrodes for Reversible Solid Oxide Cells.” Justin became a post-doc in the Barnett group afterwards.

November 29, 2016
Koichi Hamamoto returned to Japan.

October 2016
Travis Schmauss and Nicholas Geisendorfer (Ph.D. students) joined the group.

September 20, 2016
Kevin Zhao successfully defended his M.S. thesis.

August 29, 2016
Patrick Duffy successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis.

August 12, 2016
Letty Dornfeld completed her REU and returned to Case Western University.

June 17, 2016
Undergraduates Danielle Butts, Rebecca Glaser, and Yifan Sun graduated.

June 13, 2016
Letty Dornfeld (Case Western University) joined the group as a part of the Northwestern University Nanotechnology Research Experience for Undergraduates.

January 1, 2016
Kuan-Hua Chiu joined the group.

October 23, 2015
Maxwell Dylla (Co-advised with Professor Jeff Snyder) and Matthew Lu joined the group.

September 1, 2015
Qinyuan Liu joined the group.

August 26, 2015
Elizabeth Miller successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis “Synthesis, Characterization, and Optimization of Novel Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Anodes”.

June 29, 2015:
S. Jensen,C. Graves, M. Mogensen, C. Wendel,R. Braun, G. Hughes, Z. Gao, and S. Barnett published “Large-Scale Electricity Storage Utilizing Reversible Solid Oxide Cells Combined with Underground Storage of CO2 and CH4” in Energy and Environmental Science (Accepted)

April 29, 2015:
David Kennouche successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis “The Evolution of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Nickel-Yttria Stabilized Zirconia Anodes Studied Using Electrochemical and Three-Dimensional Microstructural Characterizations”.

March 31, 2015:
Zhan Gao, Victor Zenou, David Kennouche, Laurence D Marks and Scott Barnett published “Solid oxide cells with zirconia/ceria Bi-Layer electrolytes fabricated by reduced temperature firing” in Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

January 27, 2015:
Kyle Yakal-Kremski left the group to pursue post-doctoral work at NASA in Washington DC.

January 12, 2015:
Kyle Yakal-Kremski successfully defended his PhD thesis “Evaluation of Electrochemical Performance and Degradation of SOFC Cathodes by 3D FIB-SEM”.

December 2, 2014:
Ann Call successfully defends her dissertation “Performance and structural evolution of nano-scale infiltrated solid oxide fuel cells cathodes”.

November 4, 2014:
Gareth Hughes successfully defends his dissertation “Improving the Efficiency and Durability of Reversible Solid Oxide Cells for Energy Storage”

October 2014:
Xiankai Yu (1st Graduate student) joined the Barnett Research Group.

October 2013:
Hongqian Wang (1st Graduate student) joined the Barnett Research Group.

August 4, 2013:
The Barnett group summer BBQ!
Barnett BBQ 2013

April 17, 2013:
Justin Railsback was named a ISEN Cluster Fellow.

April 8, 2013:
Kyle Yakal-Kremski, Beth Miller, and David Kennouche arrived in Denmark to join Prof. Scott Barnett for a 1 month on-site collaboration at the Risø campus of the Danish Technical University.

February 26. 2013:
Prof. Scott Barnett arrived in Denmark for a 4 month sabatical at the Risø campus of the Danish Technical University.

November 10, 2012:
Justin Railsback joined the Barnett Research Group.

August 21, 2012:
Scott Cronin successfully defends his dissertation “Three-Dimensional Structure Combined with Electrochemical Performance Analysis for Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes.”

February 28, 2012:
Ann Call arrived in Germany for a 4 month on-site collaboration at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

October 28, 2011:
David Kennouche joined the Barnett Research Group.

September 24, 2011:
The Barnett group BBQ!
Barnett Group BBQ 2011

June 12, 2011:
Scott Cronin and Kyle Yakal-Kremski arrived in Denmark for a 1 month on-site collaboration at Risø Danish Technical University.

April 4, 2011:
David Bierschenk successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Regenerative and Fuel Flexible Anodes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells.”

December 23, 2010:
Jake Haag won the Best Christmas Attire award at the AFRL holiday lunch, breaking a tie for first place by winning a one-on-one dance competition.

November 23, 2010:
Megna Shah successfully defends her dissertation entitled “An Experimental and Computational Study of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes.”

October 28, 2010:
Elizabeth Miller joined the Barnett Research Group with a DOE NNSA SSGF Fellowship.

July 9, 2010:
Blake Stevens successfully defends his dissertation “Novel Thin Film Transparent Conducting Oxides Deposited by DC Reactive Magnetron Sputtering.”

April 22, 2010:
“Scott Barnett Researches Fuel Cells to Make Fossil Fuels More Efficient”
January 4, 2010:
Jason Nicholas begins his tenure as an Assistant Professor in the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Department at Michigan State University.

November 10, 2009:
Blake Stevens presented a talk titled “Dual magnetron oblique sputtering of biaxially oriented ZnO thin films on amorphous substrates” at the 56th AVS Conference in San Jose, CA.

October 4-9, 2009:
Eleventh International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC-XI) in Vienna, Austria.

James Wilson, David Bierschenk, and Jason Nicholas present at SOFC-XI in Vienna Austria.
Left to right: James Wilson, Mae Kobsiriphat, Justin Scott, David Bierschenk

October, 2009:
Blake Stevens spent October 2009 in Sweden at Linkoping University to start a collaboration with the Plasma Research Group.

September 20-25, 2009:
Blake Stevens presented a poster at the International Conference of Advanced Materials in Rio de Janeiro. Titled: “Dual magnetron oblique sputtering of biaxially oriented ZnO thin films on amorphous substrates.”

Celebrating beachside on the last day of the conference. Left to Right: Adney Luis Anjos da Silva (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Blake, Jeremy Graham (University of Virginia), Nilo Kim (Unicamp) and Felipe Loureiro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

September 15-25, 2009:
Blake Stevens attends the Workshop to Foster US-Brazilian Research Collaboration in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 15-26th, 2009.

Left to Right: Mahin Shahlari (Missouri University of S&T), Linsey Goodman (Georgia Tech), Blake, Dave Cullen (Arizona State), and Michelle Gabriele (University of Pittsburg)

September 13, 2009:
Barnett group BBQ.

September 9, 2009:
The Barnett Group watches a White Sox ball game to celebrate Hongbo Gao’s year with the Barnett Group.

Barnett Group Sox Game
Left to right: Scott Cronin, Hongbo Gao, Dr. James Wilson, Blake Stevens, David Bierschenk, Megna Shah, Joann Barnett, Scott Barnett, Oath Muangnapoh, Dr. Jason Nicholas, Gareth Hughes
August 23, 2009:
Barnett Group summer beach party.
June 28 – July 3, 2009:
Dr. James Wilson presents “Three-Dimensional Microstructure of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Cathode Materials” and Dr. Jason Nicholas presents “Effect of Infiltrate Structure and Composition on SOFC Cathode Polarization Resistance” at the 17th Conference on Solid State Ionics (SSI) in Toronto, Canada.

April 22, 2009:
Scott Cronin presents a talk entitled “3-D Reconstruction of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes” for the tri-annual DOE-BES Review of Argonne’s Electron Microscopy Center.

March 17, 2009:
James Wilson presents a talk (for Scott Barnett in absentia) entitled “Solid oxide fuel cell research at Northwestern University” at the inaugural Northwestern-Argonne Workshop on Energy Demand, held at the Allen Center at Northwestern University.

View the video here.

Feb-March, 2009:
Scott Barnett spends a month in Singapore at the Nanyang Technological University as a guest professor, researching possible collaborations and working on a new SOFC book with Professor San Ping Jiang.

January 19-23, 2009:
Scott Cronin, Megna Shah, David Bierschenk, James Wilson, and Scott Barnett attend the 33rd International Conference and Exposition on Advanced Ceramics in Daytona Beach, Florida. The titles and first authors of the talks are listed below:
Scott Cronin – “Quantitative Microstructural Analysis of Ni Coarsening in Ni-YSZ Anodes”

Megna Shah – “Polarization Resistance of Infiltrated LSCF-GDC Cathodes: Effect of Surface Area”

David Bierschenk – “Operation of Oxide-Anode Solid Oxide Fuel Cells on Simulated Coal Gas”

James Wilson – “Structural and Electrochemical Characterization of LSM-YSZ Cathodes with Varying Composition”

Scott Cronin, Megna Shah, David Bierschenk, Scott Barnett, and James Wilson (Photographer) discussing silicates at ACERS 2009.
December 8, 2008:
James Wilson successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Quantitative three-dimensional analysis of solid oxide fuel cell electrodes using focused ion beam – scanning electron microscopy.”

December 1-5, 2008:
Blake Stevens presents “DC Reactive Sputtering, Annealing, and Characterization of CuAlO2 Delafossite Thin Films” at the Materials Research Society (MRS) Fall meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.
September 29, 2008:
David Cohen successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Improved Transparent Conducting Oxides Through Modulation-Doped ZnO/ZnMgO Thin Films.”

Jan 28 – Feb 1, 2008:
Jason Nicholas, James Wilson, and Scott Barnett attend the 32nd International Conference and Exposition on Advanced Ceramics in Daytona Beach, Florida. James gives a talk entitled “Composite Electrode Microstructure Studied by Focused Ion Beam – Scanning Electron Microscopy.”

November 16, 2007:
Mae Kobsiriphat successfully defends her dissertation entitled “Ceramic Anode Materials with Nanoscale Electrocatalysts for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells.”

September 24-28, 2007:
James Wilson presents the poster “Three-dimensional reconstruction of solid oxide fuel cell electrodes,” at the Frontiers of Electron Microscopy in Materials Science (FEMMS) Conference in Sonoma, California.

September 16-20, 2007:
David Bierschenk, Megna Shah, and Blake Stevens present at the Materials Science and Technology (MS&T) Conference in Detroit, Michigan.

David Bierschenk, Megna Shah and Blake Stevens enjoying Detroit at the 2007 MS&T conference.

August, 2007:
The Barnett group, alumni, and friends enjoy the annual summer cookout at the Barnett’s house.

Barnett group, alumni, and friends at summer 2007 cookout.

June, 2007:
Scott Barnett travels China giving lectures on SOFCs as a guest of former group member and now professor at South China University, Jiang Liu.

Scott Barnett and Jiang Liu, a former group member now on the faculty at South China University, visiting the Great Wall.

June 3-7, 2007:
James Wilson, Mae Kobsiriphat, Manoj Pillai, and Scott Barnett attend the Tenth International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC-X) in Nara, Japan. James presents a talk entitled “Three-dimensional reconstruction of solid oxide fuel cell electrodes using focused ion beam – scanning electron microscopy.”

James Wilson (left), Scott Barnett, and Manoj Pillai enjoying the city of Nara, Japan, while attending the Tenth International Conference on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

February 8, 2007:
Yuanbo Lin successfully defends his dissertation entitled “Direct Methane Solid Oxide Fuel Cells and Their Related Applications.”