Event
CHBE Seminar: Dr. Wesley Henderson, DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory
Friday, February 9, 2024
11:00 a.m.
Room 2108 Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building
Patricia Lorenzana
301-405-1935
plorenza@umd.edu
Battery Connect (i.e., BattConn) ‒ A "One-Stop" Everything Resource for Your Future
Abstract: BattConn is intended to create a battery community for North America to enable the Energy Transition (i.e., electrification and shifting of energy sources) via the creation of a strong, robust battery/EV workforce. BattConn will consist of two tools: (1) a "one-stop" everything battery/EV workforce website and (2) a network of regional Hubs throughout the U.S. and Canada. The former is a monstrous compilation of useful information. The Hubs, in contrast, will be the direct-participation (i.e., living-breathing) portion of BattConn - to build regional communities for connectivity, site visits, professional development, networking, mentoring, training & education, internships, apprenticeships, etc.
Bio: Dr. Henderson is the Lead for the Battery Workforce Task Group (BG-5) for the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB) - an all-federal grouping of several hundred senior participants from 16 federal agencies focused upon advancing U.S. battery/EV manufacturing. Dr. Henderson received his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 2002. He works as a senior scientist at ARL and has served on detail as the Program Manager (PM) (2020-2021) for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (OUSD) OECIF Energy Storage & Tactical Microgrids portfolio of projects to transition power & energy relevant technologies to DOD applications. Before joining ARL, Dr. Henderson was an International Program Manager for 3 years for the Army Research Office (ARO) (2016-2019) for the Energy Transport & Storage Program while stationed in Tokyo, Japan. Prior to that, he was a Senior Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) (2014-2016), an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University (2007-2013) and an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the U.S. Naval Academy (2004-2007). He has published over 100 journal papers (Google Scholar: h-index of 64 and nearly 16,000 citations).
