News & Events

SyracuseCoE to Host Forum on Advanced Battery and Energy Storage

On November 8, 2011, SyracuseCoE will host a forum on Advanced Battery and Energy Storage Technologies.  Part of a larger series of Research and Technology forums which will highlight cutting edge research by academic and industry leaders as well as current market drivers and trends, this upcoming forum will feature presentations from Bill Acker, NY-BEST, Dr. Paul Mutolo, Cornell University, and Nathan Ball, NOHMs Technologies; all of whom are leaders in battery and energy storage technologies.

Bill Acker is executive director of the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST™), a rapidly growing coalition of entrepreneurial, academic, corporate, and federal partners building a world-class advanced battery and energy storage sector based in New York State.  With extensive experience in the clean technology sector, Acker was the founder of MTI MicroFuel Cells Inc. which specializes in the production of micro fuel cell power systems, was a founder/chairman of both Taconic Energy, Inc. and Optiwind, Corp, and President of Mechanical Technology, a public company.  Acker holds a PhD in Applied Physics from Yale University and a BS in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Dr. Paul Mutolo is the Director of External Partnerships for the Energy Materials Center (emc2) at Cornell University and has been working in the energy sector for more than 10 years.  At emc2, he establishes and maintains technology development and projects with industry partners, and drives the communication of impacts of emc2 research to educators, policy makers, and the general public.  Dr. Mutolo spent four years at MTI MicroFuel Cells, Inc. in Albany, NY where he helped develop several aspects of the MobionTM direct methanol micro fuel cell technology.  In 2000, Dr. Mutolo received his PhD in chemistry from the University of California at Santa Barbara.  As a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, he conducted two years of his doctoral research at the Westfälishe-Wilhelms Universität (WWU) in Münster, Germany.  He received his A.B. in chemistry from Cornell University in 1994.



Nathan Ball is CEO of Nanoscale Organic Hybrid Materials (NOHMs) Technologies, Inc., an emerging company that is commercializing rechargeable lithium-ion battery technology with significant performance, cost, safety, and environmental advantages and has positioned itself as a battery materials supplier and developer of battery prototypes. More than a decade of research at Cornell University has yielded three technology patent filings, which are being licensed to the company.  Ball was most recently employed at e2e Materials in Ithaca, NY where he was Project and Process Engineer, taking the lead role in pilot plant design and start-up.  He has worked and studied in the Middle East, Asia, and in Europe.  Ball earned a MS degree in chemical engineering as a member of the inaugural graduate class of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, and a BS from Texas A&M University.

The upcoming forum will be held on November 8 from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the SyracuseCoE Headquarters building at 727 E. Washington Street, Syracuse, NY.  A networking reception will follow the presentations.  Attendees must RSVP to Stacy Bunce at sbunce@syracusecoe.org or 315-443-4445.

Syracuse Center of Excellence (syracusecoe.org) is a collaborative organization of more than 200 businesses and institutions that creates innovations for sustainable built and urban environments. SyracuseCoE members work on research, development, and educational projects relating to clean and renewable energy, indoor environmental quality, and water resources.