Steingart Lab At Columbia

Heck if we know. A lot of people think it's lithium metal, so we've spent some time studying how the most reducing element in the periodic table behaves in various contexts and settings. As you might expect, it could behave better. But in examining lithium's behavior in both good (e.g., we want a lithium anode to work) and bad (e.g., we do not want lithium metal to exist in a lithium-ion battery), we've gained some new insights into behaviors. More to come.

Read More Here

In the past, we have worked on Zn-MnO2 systems (super complex to stabilize, but heaven holds a place for they whom can), flexible batteries (but no one could tell us what they were really useful for, so we stopped). We also spend a fair amount of time building internal software and hardware to enable all of the fun things, and the building is fun as well.

Thus far, the group has graduated 10 PhD students and 10 MS students and has served as a home to many fantastic post-doctoral researchers and undergraduate students. Our alumni have started two companies based on research and software created in the lab, and a few more are probably in the works. Our alumni find themselves in exciting positions at big companies, small companies, and excellent universities.

We are proudly housed in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University. We are affiliated with the Departments of Earth and Environmental Engineering and Chemical Engineering, the Columbia Electrochemical Energy Center, and the Earth Institute.

Previously, we were fortunate to have been at Princeton University in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Previous to this, we were at the City College of New York in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the CUNY Energy Institute.

With very generous support from federal and industrial sponsors. Current sponsors include DOE ARPA-E, DOT, NSF, Mercedes Benz Research and Development North America, General Motors, and ICL. Previous sponsors included BP, ExxonMobil, AlphaEn, Princeton University and NASA. Our experimental programs were enabled by financial support from and facilities from the City University of New York, Princeton University, and now Columbia University.

Do you want to work on the things above? Please reach out before applying. Graduate studies are not like undergraduate studies. Faculty directly review graduate school applications (this lab is affiliated with Earth and Environmental Engineering and Chemical Engineering). Faculty are also directly responsible for paying your tuition and stipend (yes, you get paid to get a Ph.D., not very much, but hey, we're trying). So reaching out directly to me is a great way to let us know you're interested, and it is immensely helpful for our budgeting. Note that SEAS determines the stipend and benefits.

We do what we do to make the world a little closer to a technology-enabled post-scarcity economy, and we cannot do it without proper representation from everyone who would benefit from and live in such a world. This means you. We welcome and celebrate all backgrounds and self-identifications and strive to nurture an internal culture of diversity, inclusion, equity, respect, and understanding. We cannot do what we do without understanding the world's needs, and we cannot understand the world's needs without maximum representation.

(note: if you’d instead go straight to the engine of the group, skip the old man, and want to speak with a peer before reaching out to Dan, feel free to contact anyone in our group)