Biography

Corie L. Cobb is a Professor in Mechanical Engineering, and a member of the Clean Energy Institute and the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute.  She came to the UW from Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (formerly known as Xerox PARC) where she was a Senior Member of Research Staff for seven years leading research projects on advanced manufacturing technologies for solar cells, batteries, and high strength materials. Professor Cobb’s research lies at the intersection of manufacturing, engineered materials, and computational design for printing and patterning of functional materials for clean energy applications. Her research has been funded by grants from DOE, ARPA-E, DARPA and industrial partners. Prior to PARC, Professor Cobb was a mechanical engineer at Applied Materials and held internship positions at Hewlett-Packard, Bell Labs, Google and Toshiba. She has 20 issued United States patents (and additional international patent filings) in the areas of 3D Lithium-ion batteries, 3D printing and high-precision manufacturing.

Education

• Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
• M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University
• B.S. in Product Design, Stanford University

Previous appointments

• Tenure-Track Associate Professor, 2017-2021
• Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Inc., Senior Member of Research Staff, 2010-2017
• Applied Materials, Mechanical Engineer, 2008-2010

Research Statement

The Integrated Fabrication Laboratory investigates new manufacturing paradigms that will revolutionize energy storage and other complex engineered systems.  This multi-disciplinary approach integrates the fields of design theory, computation, manufacturing, and materials science.  Currently, we are focused on developing innovative fabrication solutions for the most pressing problems in energy-relevant materials for Lithium-ion batteries.  Our longer-term goal is to develop new additive-based fabrication processes that will enable the digital control of material architecture over large areas and can integrate energy storage and other operational features into electronics and structural components while supporting adaptive manufacturing on-demand.  

Select publications

1. M.E.R. Katz and C.L. Cobb, “High-Viscosity Phase Inversion Separators for Freestanding and Direct-on-Electrode Manufacturing in Lithium-ion Batteries,” ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 16, No. 34, pp. 44863–44878, 2024.
2. C.-H. Hung, P. Huynh, K. Teo, and C.L. Cobb, “Are Three-dimensional Batteries Beneficial? Analyzing Historical Data to Elucidate Performance Advantages,” ACS Energy Letters, 8 (1), pp. 296–305, 2023.
3. C.-H. Hung, S. Allu, and C.L. Cobb, “Modeling Current Density Non-Uniformities to Understand High-Rate Limitations in 3D Interdigitated Lithium-ion Batteries,” Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol. 168, 100512, 2021.
4. D.S. Melchert, K. Johnson, B. Giera, E.J. Fong, M. Shusteff, J. Mancini, J. Karnes, C.L. Cobb, C. Spadaccini, D.S. Gianola, M.R. Begley, “Modeling Meso- and Microstructure in Materials Patterned with Acoustic Focusing,” Materials & Design, Vol. 202, pp. 109512, 2021.
5. K.B. Hatzell, X.C. Chen, C.L. Cobb, N.P. Dasgupta, M.B. Dixit, L.E. Marbella, M.T. McDowell, P.P. Mukherjee, V. Viswanathan, A.S. Westover, and W.G. Zeier, “Recent Progress and Future Outlook on Lithium Metal Anodes for Solid State Batteries,” ACS Energy Letters, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 692-1012, 2020.
6. J. Wong, A.T. Gong, P.A. Defnet, L. Meabe, B. Beauchamp, R.M. Sweet, B. Zhang, H. Sardon, C.L. Cobb, A. Nelson, “3D Printing Ionogel Auxetic Frameworks for Stretchable Sensors,” Advanced Materials Technologies, 1900452, 2019.
7. C.L. Cobb and S.E. Solberg, “Communication–Analysis of Thick Co-Extruded Cathodes for Higher-Energy-and-Power Lithium-Ion Batteries,” Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol. 164, No. 7, pp. 1-3, 2017.
8. C.L. Cobb and M. Blanco, “Modeling Mass and Density Distribution Effects on the Performance of Co-extruded Electrodes for High Energy Density Lithium-ion Batteries,” Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 249, pp. 357-366, 2014.
9. C.L. Cobb and A.M. Agogino, “Case-based Reasoning for Evolutionary MEMS Design,” Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering, Vol. 10, Issue 3, 031005, 2010.

Honors & awards

• Washington State Academy of Sciences, 2023
• DARPA Director's Fellowship, 2021
• DARPA Young Faculty Award, 2019
• 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award, 2019
• National Academy of Engineering EU-US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (Invited Session Organizer), 2019
• National Academy of Engineering China-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (Invited Participant), 2015
• PARC Golden Acorn Award, 2015
• SiliconPV Best Paper Award, 2015
• Alfred P. Sloan Scholar, 2005
• Bell Labs Cooperative Research Fellowship Program Fellow, 2002

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