Principal Investigator:
Nicola H. Perry
Associate Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering & Materials Research Laboratory
268 MRL / (217) 300-6335
Read Prof. Perry’s profile on the department website here.
nhperry [at] illinois [dot] edu
Students:
Kai-Wei Lan
PhD Student
Joined 1/2021
kwlan2 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: Bulk & thin film solid electrolytes for temperature-insensitive and recyclable Li-ion batteries; cold sintering; grain boundaries; EIS during PLD
En Ju Cho
PhD Student
Joined 9/2021
enjucho2 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: 1) Thin film solid electrolytes for Li-ion batteries by PLD with in-situ EIS; 2) Defect chemistry of electrocatalysts for low temperature green H2 production
Alexia Popescu
PhD Student
Joined 8/2022
alexia3 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: Combinatorial film libraries and 2D optical analysis of hydrogenation surface exchange kinetics on triple conductors for DOE-EC then HEISs EFRC
Sipei Zhang
PhD Student
Joined 8/2022
sipeiz2 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: electro-chemo-mechanical coupling of interface-dominated materials (mixed conductors and battery electrodes) for MUSIC EFRC
Yong-Yun Hsiau
PhD Student
Joined 8/2022
yhsiau2 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: vertically aligned nanocomposite films, new triple conductors, and RBS/ERDA composition analysis for HEISs EFRC
Xuanze (Ben) Yu
PhD Student
Joined 8/2023
xyu63 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: 1) perovskite chemical expansion and 2) chemo-mechanical coupling in battery electrodes for MUSIC EFRC
Chieh-Jung (Jimmy) Lu
PhD Student
Joined 8/2023
cjlu2 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: photo-ionics (MRSEC)
Vanessa Woo
PhD Student
Joined 8/2024
cjlu2 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: photo-ionics (MRSEC)
Hong-Jyun Huang
PhD Student
Joined 11/2024
cjlu2 [at] illinois [dot] edu
Project: photo-ionics (MRSEC)
Nikhila Balasubramaniam
PhD Student
Joined fall 2025
Project: Interface engineering for long-lifetime, all-solid-state batteries (CERL)
Jac Copeland
BS Student in MatSE
Joined fall 2025 for senior thesis research
Project: Chemo-mechanical coupling of battery electrodes
Julie Arias
BS Student in MatSE
Joined fall 2024 (on leave from the group fall 2025)
Project: MRSEC Photo-Ionics
Alumni:
MS / PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers:
Dr. Jongmin Lee
Postdoc (2021-2024)
Now working at Samsung
Rachel Pereira
PhD student (fall 2023)
Now working at CU Public Health District
Dr. Adrian Yong
co-advised PhD student (2019-2024)
Now working as postdoctoral researcher at Kyushu University
Dr. Haley Buckner
PhD student (2018-2023)
Now working at Boeing
Dr. Lawrence Anderson
PhD student (2018-2023)
Now working at Ebatco
Dr. Emily Skiba
PhD student (2018-2023)
Dr. Steven Lin
PhD student (2018-2023)
Now working at Factorial Energy
Guha Keshav Mohan
MS student researcher (2022)
Dr. Dino Klotz
Post-doctoral researcher at I2CNER; Co-advised with Prof. Harry Tuller (MIT)
Working at Zurich Instruments
Dr. Ting Chen
PhD student then post-doctoral researcher at I2CNER (2015-2019)
Now assistant professor at China University of Mining and Technology
Dr. Sophie Ju
Post-doctoral researcher at I2CNER
Now working as researcher at Charles University (Prague)
Micah Armstrong
PhD student 2020-2022
Now working at Intel, Arizona
Colin Reedy
PhD student 2019-2020
Now working at Elemental Scientific, Inc., Nebraska
Yiwen Guo
3+2 ZJU-UIUC BS+MS student 2019-2021
Now PhD student at Penn State
Undergraduate researchers:
Leo Liu
REU Mentee (summer 2025)
Yoav Malka
Undergraduate researcher at UIUC (8/2023-5/2025)
Rebecca Hurwitz
REU Mentee (summer 2024)
Katrina Arsky
Undergraduate researcher at UIUC (2021-2023)
Harry Hawbaker
REU Mentee (summer 2023)
Michael Sun
Undergraduate researcher at UIUC (2022-2023)
Jackie Zheng
REU Mentee (summer 2022)
Joshua Simpson-Gomez
Undergraduate researcher at UIUC (1/2020-5/2022)
Sankhya Hirani
Undergraduate researcher at UIUC (2/2020-5/2020)
Jo Kubota
Undergraduate researcher at UIUC (9/2019-5/2020)
Kotaro Yamamoto
Visiting undergraduate researcher from Kyushu U. at UIUC (2-3/2020)
Karen Yang
Undergraduate researcher at UIUC (9/2018-8/2019)
Yuki Abe
Visiting undergraduate researcher from Kyushu University (spring 2019)
Kimberly Garza
Undergraduate researcher at UIUC (fall 2018)
Takaya Fujisaki
3-month intern in the group at I2CNER
Juveria Masood
Summer PIRE X-fusion exchange student at I2CNER