Research Staff
MSRI’s research staff has grown to include six Ph.D.s and seven research engineers, including:
Neill Weber, Ph.D.
Dr. Weber is an in-house consultant at MSRI. He has 12 patents and 27 publications to his credit, many of which have resulted in technologies that have been commercialized. His pioneering work on AMTEC and Na-S battery using β"-alumina solid electrolytes was done during his time at Ford Motor Company. Dr. Weber has more than 30 years experience on β"-alumina materials and other electrochemical devices.
Research Scientists & Principal Investigators:
Greg Tao, Ph.D.
Dr. Tao is currently the Principal Investigator on two DOE funded projects for hydrogen production from natural gas using solid-state electrochemical devices. He has extensive experience in phenomenological and numerical models of fuel cells and electrolyzers, solid-state electrochemistry, and thermal science. Dr. Tao graduated from the University of Arizona with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Xi’an Jiaotong University in China with a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Koh is currently the Principal Investigator for a DOE funded project aimed at developing and optimizing fuel cell performance. Past research efforts include fuel cells (MCFC, SOFC, PEMFC), fuel processing systems, chromatography analysis, separation technologies, thin film deposition, and theoretical modeling and simulation. Dr. Koh graduated from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana with a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Zhao recently joined MSRI after receiving his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Utah. Dr. Zhao has seven years of experience in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) research, working on the investigation of various polarization mechanisms (ohmic polarization, activation polarization, and concentration polarization) in SOFC and the optimization of electrode microstructures to minimize polarizations. He has developed electrodes with low polarizations for electrochemical applications. During his study at the Univerisity of Utah, he participated in several projects from the Department of Energy. Dr. Zhao is currently active in MSRI’s SOFC research projects.