PhD student named a 2014 Beckman Graduate Fellow

Her research aims to advance the reliability and safety of lithium-ion batteries, and to extend their use beyond portable electronics to electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. She proposes to study high-capacity electrode materials, such as silicon and tin, which have up to 10 times the theoretical capacity of commercially used materials (graphite) but are limited by the huge volumetric expansion that occurs during the alloying process with lithium.

Jones works with Nancy Sottos and Scott White of the Autonomous Materials Systems Group, as well as Paul Braun from the 3D Micro- and Nanosystems Group.

For the past three years, funding for Jones’ research has come from an NSF graduate research fellowship and from the Center for Electrical Energy Storage (CEES), an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

“This summer, both of these funding sources will reach the end of their term, which would have made the future direction of my research uncertain. However, receiving the Beckman Graduate Fellowship gives me more freedom to continue to pursue my current topic of research, without worrying as much about having to change the direction of my research to fit in with new funding sources,” said Jones.

She said the Beckman program is notable because it encourages interdisciplinary research and fosters collaborations.

“I have started a new collaboration with students in Professor Braun’s group in materials science and engineering in order to combine their expertise in fabricating a unique electrode architecture with my expertise in studying the mechanics of electrodes during electrochemical cycling. I do not think I would have the freedom work on this collaboration without the Beckman Graduate Fellowship.”

The Beckman Graduate Fellows Program offers University of Illinois graduate students at the MA, MS, or PhD level the opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary research at the Institute. Research projects must involve at least one Beckman faculty member in addition to a second U of I faculty member, and preference is given to those proposals that are interdisciplinary and involve the active participation of two Beckman faculty members from two different groups.