Joe Carlin and Mohammad Aljishi successfully defended their PhD thesis in August and November. Joe joined Axium Nano to develop next generation separator materials, and Mohammad went back to Saudi Aramco who sponsored his PhD program at Cornell.

Four first year MS students in the department, Travis O’Neil, Chao-Wen Chang, Leyan Wang and Josh Yashi, joined the group. Travis started working on polymer-ceramic hybrid separators for Li-air batteries, and Chao-Wen is studying moisture barrier films based on layering graphene/polymer hybrids. Leyan and Josh work on encapsulating silicon particles and hybridizing silicon with graphite, respectively, for Li-ion battery anode applications.