Kevin has been involved in battery testing and R&D for nearly 20 years while at INL. Dr. Gering is an established expert in the field of state-of-the-art molecular-based electrolyte models for electrochemical systems (AEM), and has developed novel performance and lifecycle (aging) models for lithium-ion systems covering mechanistic aspects of kinetic limitations and performance loss over battery life (CellSage).  AEM generates more than 80 property metrics with each simulation, giving genomic-level information for electrolyte characterization.  Kevin is well qualified to speak on issues of electrolyte transport, characterization, screening, and optimization for lithium-ion systems, wherein particular areas of expertise are highly concentrated electrolytes and  low-temperature battery performance.  During AEM development Kevin has achieved milestones in formulating mathematics and new modeling techniques that capture properties that were previously very difficult to model over wide ranges of temperature and salt concentration, such as colligative permittivity, conductivity, diffusivity, viscosity, surface tension, ion desolvation energy and kinetics, double-layer composition and properties, comprehensive ion speciation, osmotic pressure, preferential ion solvation, and many others.   Dr. Gering has a diverse background in modeling complex systems, where other previous work covered developing a methane hydrates marine basin model, a dynamic passive aeration compost model, blast wave calculations, transport model for pulsed reactors, and others. He actively collaborates with other DOE labs, universities, and the private sector, and is an advocate of domestic intellectual property, having a number of patents issued and pending, with some currently under license.