Corie L. Cobb

Biography

Corie L. Cobb is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington with expertise in battery technology, advanced manufacturing, materials development, and computation for energy applications at scale. She is a recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award, DARPA Director's Fellowship, 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award, and she was recently elected to the National Academy of Inventors and Washington State Academy of Sciences.  Her research has been supported by DOE, ARPA-E, DARPA and industrial partners. Her background spans materials research to manufacturing scale-up. Prior to UW, she spent seven years at Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (formerly Xerox PARC) leading research on advanced manufacturing technologies for batteries and other energy storage and conversion systems, and two years at Applied Materials designing and commercializing semiconductor manufacturing systems. She holds 20 United States patents, with additional applications and international filings, in lithium-ion batteries 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 develops next-generation manufacturing technologies for advanced energy and structural systems. Our work bridges design, computation, manufacturing, and materials science to create innovative fabrication solutions — with a current focus on lithium-ion battery materials. Looking ahead, we are developing additive manufacturing processes that enable precise digital control of material architecture at scale, with the goal of integrating energy storage and other functional capabilities directly into electronics and structural components, and supporting on-demand adaptive manufacturing.

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

• 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 Ph.D. Scholar, 2005
• Bell Labs Cooperative Research Fellowship Program Fellow, 2002
• National Academy of Inventors Fellow, 2024
• Washington State Academy of Sciences, 2023

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