Tesla INC. Reno, NV USA

At Tesla I worked on the process to refine battery-grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate, and I grew through nearly every stage of it. I joined as a technician in the downstream lab, then moved upstream, and from there into developing novel extraction techniques, work that fed directly into the pilot plant and, eventually, into my role as a pilot plant engineer. Along the way I synthesized Tesla's first battery-grade lithium hydroxide from a new process route, producing 12kg in under ten weeks, and commissioned the company's first pilot-scale crystallizer in under three months, which enabled validation of more than ten process parameters. I designed, procured, and commissioned the supporting equipment for two crystallization systems, ran multiple Designs of Experiments to validate parameters for commercial equipment, and improved R&D lab efficiency by over 90% using Lean Six Sigma methods. By the end I was helping lead a team of engineers and technicians to scale and de-risk a $500MM+ refining process toward commercial deployment, having touched it at nearly every level from the bench to the pilot floor.