The ECS Industrial Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Engineering Division election is now open, featuring an outstanding slate of candidates for leadership.
This year’s ballot includes two candidates for Division Secretary/Treasurer, each bringing unique experience and perspectives to the role. Their biographies and candidacy statements follow for your review.
ECS Division officers serve as dedicated volunteers. We encourage all IE&EE Division members to take part in this important election. Your participation plays an important role in shaping the division’s future.
Voting is open through April 30. Instructions and a link to the electronic voting ballot are at the end of the page.
Shrihari “Shri” Sankarasubramanian
Shrihari “Shri” Sankarasubramanian
Biography
Dr. Shrihari “Shri” Sankarasubramanian is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He also holds a courtesy appointment in the university’s Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Industrial Engineering.
Prof. Sankarasubramanian’s work broadly focuses on developing the technological underpinnings of a circular, dynamic, zero-carbon economy, as well as electrochemical solutions for extreme environments, including astronaut life support and space exploration. This work spans the full gamut—from fundamental physical chemistry and materials development to device engineering and scale-up. His research has resulted in 44 publications, including in venues such as Nature Energy and PNAS, as well as in seven issued and six pending US patents. His lab at UTSA has received support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He is an elected Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and a winner of the NASA TechLeap prize.
Prof. Sankarasubramanian earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he was both a Dean’s Scholar and Energy Technology Fellow. Before joining UTSA, he was Senior Staff Research Scientist at the Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, where he started as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and advanced through the ranks.
Dr. Sankarasubramanian has served ECS and the IE&EE Division is various capacities, including chairing IE&EE’s Travel Awards Committee and Student Awards Committee, and member of the Executive Committee. He is also Secretary of the ECS Texas Section.
Candidacy statement
I am honored to be nominated for the position of Secretary/Treasurer of the ECS Industrial Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Engineering (IE&EE) Division.
The Secretary/Treasurer’s key responsibility is stewarding a strong financial position. Changes in the scientific funding landscape and barriers to meetings travel pose challenges to the Society’s financial model. If elected Secretary/Treasurer , I look forward to working with the division chair and vice-chair and members of the executive committee to sustain division support for various awards, support division and joint symposia, and seek increased external support for division activities. To successfully execute this role, I will draw upon my experience managing the finances of a multi-million-dollar lab as principal investigator. The UTSA Chemical Engineering Department is among the youngest in the US. As one of the early hires, I am very familiar with departmental fund raising, industrial relations, and alumni relations. I will leverage these experiences in executing the role of Secretary/Treasurer.
ECS has been my home academic society since 2012 when I started graduate studies. For me, ECS Meetings have been the primary venue for communicating new results, learning about the cutting edge in the field, and the place where I catch up with old friends and make new ones. Over the years, I have served ECS first as member, then as Chair of the IE&EE Student Awards and Travel Awards Committees. As a member of the IE&EE Division Executive Committee, I have contributed to division governance including organizing symposia and gaining insight into division finances and Society governance. Since last year, I have also served as Secretary of the ECS Texas Section (one of the largest sections) and helped support the Texas area ECS Student Conference.
In nearly five years of serving on the IE&EE Student Awards and Travel Awards Committees, I have seen firsthand the truly global reach of ECS with applications/nominations coming in from all around the world. For many researchers, the division’s support makes the difference between being able to attend vs. skipping a meeting. The Student Achievement and H. H. Dow Memorial Student Achievement Awards recipients lists read like a global who’s who in electrochemistry list. The new awardees are invited to attend the (very collegial) division executive committee luncheon and tend to keep coming back as life-long members of IE&EE. This is how communities of scientists are built and sustained. If elected Secretary/Treasurer, it would be my honor to work with division and Society leadership and members of ECS at all levels to sustain and advance the division and support all our efforts to practice electrochemistry for the betterment of humanity.
William Tarpeh
William Tarpeh
Biography
William Tarpeh is Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. The Tarpeh Lab uses catalysis and separations to advance wastewater refining, which generates tunable portfolios of products from water pollutants. In addition to improving mechanistic understanding of novel materials and processes, the group also advances wastewater treatment in resource-constrained communities to improve access to water, fertilizers, and chemical commodities.
Prof. Tarpeh completed his BS in Chemical Engineering at Stanford, his MS and PhD in environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan. His recent awards include the MacArthur Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, Paul Busch Award, Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, AIChE 35 Under 35 Award, AIChE Environmental Division Early Career Award, and ECS Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship. Prof. Tarpeh is also a cofounder and scientific advisor to Recovered Potential, a startup spun out of his lab that focuses on electrochemical ammonia recovery from industrial wastewaters. He joined ECS and its IE&EE Division upon becoming a faculty member at Stanford in 2018.
Candidacy Statement
I attended my first ECS Meeting in the second month of my faculty position (October 2018), and have felt at home ever since, particularly in the Industrial Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Engineering Division (IE&EE). Using electrochemical separations and catalysis to convert wastewater pollutants into valuable products, which is the core of my research agenda, fits right in at IE&EE. This feeling is the core of my candidacy to help lead the division over the next several years. Since attending that first AiMES meeting in Cancún in 2018, I have attended or sponsored trainees to present at every meeting except for one (13 out of 14 meetings). I have organized symposia at several of these meetings (11 symposia in total), with particular focus on advancing sustainability applications in the IE&EE Division. Key highlights include new sessions on electrochemistry and sustainability, and a session on startups in electrochemical manufacturing that I proposed, developed, and executed. This startup session was extremely well attended in its first offering in San Francisco in 2024, and a second offering in Seattle for the 249th ECS Meeting in spring 2026 looks like it will be equally successful. Beyond a home for me, IE&EE has become a home for my students and postdocs from my group, 13 of whom have presented their work at ECS meetings, including two IE&EE Student Achievement Award winners.
Looking to the future, I am excited to engage more industry members in IE&EE, particularly considering the large uptick of electrochemistry startups in the past five to 10 years. I envision students interacting even more with these industry members to inform their careers. In addition, seeding research ideas and projects between faculty members and industry members could be an exciting area for growth. I have always felt welcomed at IE&EE and would like to continue this spirit into the next stage of growth and opening doors for early-career electrochemical engineers. I am honored to be considered for the position of Secretary/Treasurer and look forward to engaging with your ideas for the division should I be elected.
Voting instructions
Proceed to the electronic proxy ballot and follow these easy steps to cast your vote:
- Enter your ECS member number and password. (Your member number is under MY ACCOUNT/ECS ID when you log on to the ECS website.)
- After logging on, your electronic proxy ballot opens. Enter your vote for each office.
- If you have trouble logging on, contact customer service.
- You can only vote once.
Thank you for participating in this important election!