Jason Nicholas is an Associate Professor in the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Department at Michigan State University (MSU). His group is focused on understanding and exploiting ionic conduction, ionic surface exchange, mechano-electro-chemical coupling, cost-effective processing methodologies, and hierarchy tailored microstructures to improve the performance of fuel cells, batteries, sensors, and other electro-chemically active devices. He is also actively engaged in the development of new braze and electronic circuit production methods and the application of Materials Science methods to high pressure mineral physics. He earned a B.S. in Geoscience, with Honors, from Franklin & Marshall College in 2000, a M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2003, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California Berkeley in 2007. After a PostDoc position at Northwestern University, he joined the facult at MSU in 2010.  His innovative teaching and research have earned him a MSU Withrow Teaching Award and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award. Jason has also taken several leadership roles, serving as the lead organizer for a NSF-sponsored “Solid Oxide Fuel Cells- Promise, Progress, and Priorities” workshop, the initiating organizer for the annual Michigan State Girl Scout Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Demo Day, and a guest editor for a Journal of the Electrochemical Society Focus Issue on mechano-electro-chemical coupling.

Hirbod Maleki Kheimeh Sari
Ph.D. Student, Materials Science
Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Dept.

Hirbod received his Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Advanced Electrochemical Energy at Xi’an University of Technology from 2018 to 2022. His past research focused on the design and synthesis of novel nanomaterials for energy storage devices. Hirbod joined the Nicholas Group at Michigan State University in Fall 2024, where his current research interests center on enhancing the performance of Solid Oxide Cells, particularly through investigating discrepancies in measuring oxygen surface exchange coefficients.