funding

Sponsors supporting the CEW Lab's research.

The lab’s work is supported by federal, state, and industry sponsors. We are grateful to all of them.

Active

National Science Foundation · Division of Materials Research, Ceramics — Understanding the Granular Creeping Behavior during the Densification Processing of Ceramic Electrolytes in All-Solid-State Batteries. PI. Through 2030.

National Science Foundation · Energy Storage Engine — ROC-BEAT (Rochester Battery Engineering and Training). A nine-institution regional battery workforce consortium; Prof. Tu leads the university tier.

U.S. Army Research Office · Young Investigator Program — A General Solution for the Dendrite Issue in Mono/Multi-valent Solid-State Batteries. PI.

U.S. Department of Energy · Vehicle Technologies Office, Battery500 Consortium (subaward via the University of Houston) — Noble-metal-free Interlayer Design for All-Solid-State Batteries. Co-PI.

U.S. Economic Development Administration · New Energy New York — RIT Battery Manufacturing Training Facility. Senior personnel.

Computational allocations · NSF ACCESS and DOE NREL, both renewable, supporting the lab’s DFT and molecular dynamics work.

Completed

National Science Foundation · Energy Storage Engine — GROW (subaward via Binghamton University): Workforce Development of Energy Storage Technologies for Regional Community Colleges. PI. 2024–2026.

New York State Pollution Prevention Institute — In-situ Heavy-Metal Removal during Industrial Operation with Membrane Capacitive Deionization. PI. 2022–2023.

Samsung Electronics — Optimization of the Composite Cathode in Solid-State Batteries. PI. 2022–2023.

Mammoth Inc. — Pneumatic Device for Trapping. Co-PI. 2022.

Awards & honors

  • MRS Early Career Distinguished Presenter, Materials Research Society — December 2025
  • Best Poster, NY-BEST Annual Conference — October 2024
  • Young Investigator Program award, U.S. Army Research Office — 2022
  • PSPS Challenge, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — October 2019
  • Paper award, World Congress on Computational Mechanics — July 2016