BrIAS Batteries 2025 – Keynote speakers
Prof. Anna Stefanopoulou – University of Michigan
Title: Estimation of Dominant Degradation Mechanism for Safe and Long Battery Life
Abstract: This lecture will summarize estimation efforts for battery state of health (SOH) and degradation mechanisms using physics-based models. We then point to the challenges in predicting remaining useful life for the resale of battery electric vehicles or stretching their utilization by supporting home or grid loads when parked. We show how these physics-based models are also extendable to capture transitions to abnormal behavior, such as inhomogeneities or gas evolution, allowing us to detect imminent faults and their fate.
BIO: Anna G. Stefanopoulou is the William Clay Ford Professor of Technology at the University of Michigan. She was the Director of the Automotive Research Center, a multi-university U.S. Army Center of Excellence of Ground Vehicles, and the Michigan Energy Institute. She was also an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a technical specialist at Ford Motor Company. She has been recognized as a Fellow of three engineering societies, ASME (08), IEEE (09), and SAE (18). Some of her recent awards are the 2024 Nyquist Lecturer, the 2019 AACC Control Engineering Practice Award (“for the modeling, analysis, and control of advanced vehicle powertrain systems”), the 2018 ASME Charles Stark Draper Innovative Practice Award (for advancing engine, fuel cell, and battery management), and the 2017 IEEE Control System Technology award (for advanced battery management system accounting for electro-thermo-mechanical phenomena). She has served on two U.S. National Academy committees (2015 and 2020), which were formed upon the request of the U.S. Congress to report on vehicle fuel economy standards and the transition to electrification. She has advised and mentored more than 50 Ph.D. students and co-authored with them a book, 25 U.S. patents, and more than 400 publications (seven of which have received awards) on the estimation and control of engines, fuel cells, and batteries.
Dr. Jan Richter – Batemo
Title: Driving Battery Innovation: Accelerating Development by Physical Modeling of Hundreds of Batteries
BIO: Dr.-Ing. Jan Richter studied electrical engineering and information technology. He focused on electric mobility and the fields of electrochemical energy storage, power electronics, and electrical machines. He completed his doctorate on modelling, parameter identification and control of highly-utilized synchronous machines at the Institute of Electrical Engineering (ETI) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In 2017, Dr.-Ing. Jan Richter founded Batemo GmbH together with Dr.-Ing. Michael Schoenleber in Karlsruhe. He operates as Batemo’s CEO. Since then Batemo serves various markets and works with companies from different industries such as power tools, light mobility, automotive, aerospace, industrial and cell manufacturing sectors. Until today, Batemo is completely owned by the founders, independent and completely customer-funded.
Dr. Marja Vilkman – VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Title: Toward Safe, Sustainable and Scalable Batteries
BIO: Marja is a Principal Scientist at VTT in Finland. She has a MSc. degree in chemical engineering and DSc. degree in physics, both from Aalto University. Marja has worked with functional materials and their processing for 20 years. She develops materials and processing methods for sustainable next generation batteries, such as solid-state batteries and batteries that use more abundant or even bio-based materials. Marja is a coordinator of two EU projects about batteries, a recently ended HIDDEN project and an ongoing SOLiD project, which aim at producing Li-metal batteries with long lifetime and high energy density. She is also the research chair of the Batteries Europe/BEPA Working Group of Raw Materials and Recycling.
Prof. Tijs Donkers – TU Eindhoven
Title: Data-driven battery modelling using linear parameter-varying models
BIO: Tijs is an Associate Professor in the Control Systems group of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Tijs received his MSc and PhD (both summa cum laude) in Systems and Control in 2008 and 2011, respectively, from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at TU/e. In 2010, Tijs visited the Cyber-Physical Systems laboratory of the University of California at Los Angeles, CA, USA, and, from 2012 until 2013, he was a researcher at the Dutch Institute for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) in Helmond, Netherlands. He was an assistant professor from 2013-2021 and received tenure in 2016. He is currently involved in the European projects EVERLASTING, LONGRUN and SENSIBAT.
His recent research has led to using distributed optimization and (model predictive) control for (complete) vehicle energy management. Besides this, his research covers several aspects of modeling and control of batteries (such as optimal charging, cell balancing and state estimation) and combustion engines.