Renowned Energy-Storage Leader Aims To Expand University’s Impact

Dr. Babu Chalamala, a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an expert in grid energy-storage research, is helping to position The University of Texas at Dallas as a national leader in battery-storage technology and the future electric grid.

Chalamala joined the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science as a professor of materials science and engineering last fall. He holds the Jonsson School Distinguished Chair and is supported by the Governor's University Research Initiative, a Texas program that recruits distinguished researchers and provides matching grants of up to $5 million. In June, he also will be a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Chalamala has more than three decades of experience spanning fundamental research, industry leadership and energy policy. Most recently he was a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he led research efforts in energy-storage technology and systems, and where he built a grid energy-storage program. He also engaged directly with industry partners, regulators and grid operators across the country on the practical challenges of deploying storage technologies at scale.

His industry experience includes working at MEMC Electronic Materials/SunEdison, where he led research and product development in energy-storage technology. He also worked at Texas Instruments and Motorola Inc. on flat-panel display technology and had founding roles in two startup companies, including a battery manufacturing venture in India.

Chalamala is a fellow of the IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Inventors and the Materials Research Society. He also is a member of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, a United Nations organization comprising engineers and energy systems experts from around the world who address technical pathways and policy to achieve comprehensive decarbonization.

"Babu's stature helps us continue to elevate the standing of the Jonsson School and UT Dallas," said Dr. Stephanie G. Adams, Jonsson School dean and the Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair. "I look forward to his leadership as we expand our footprint in energy systems and societal impact."

At UT Dallas, Chalamala is establishing his own research group as well as new concentrations in power electronics and grid technologies, and he is building capabilities for energy-storage systems integration. Together these initiatives will expand on the work being done by researchers in the Batteries and Energy to Advance Commercialization and National Security (BEACONS) center, which is supported by a $30 million Department of Defense grant to bridge battery research and domestic manufacturing.

"UT Dallas can become central in these domains, bringing power electronics, battery storage and the grid of the future together under one center of excellence," Chalamala said. "Our goal is to build capabilities that will enable us to address complex and challenging issues in energy-sector transformation."

Chalamala's research is aimed at addressing both near-term and long-term challenges. For example, his group will work with industry partners to address how to integrate diverse battery technologies into full-scale energy storage and will establish a high-voltage power electronics packaging lab. A longer-term goal is to build comprehensive capabilities in power electronics, which include semiconductor devices and control mechanisms that convert one form of power to another for specific uses.

Energy systems across key areas, including transportation, electric-vehicle charging infrastructure, energy storage, distributed energy resources and data centers, are becoming increasingly reliant on power electronics, Chalamala said.

"In a data-center environment, racks of servers operate at roughly 1 volt," he said. "The grid operates at kilovolts, even at the distribution level. To bring voltage down to that 1-volt level, you need layers of conversion devices, and there are inefficiencies and scaling challenges. Building high-power-density power electronics is a 10- to-20-year vision."

After earning his Bachelor of Technology in electronics and communication engineering from Sri Venkateswara University in India, Chalamala earned his PhD in physics from the University of North Texas (UNT). Dr. Bruce Gnade, professor emeritus of materials science and engineering at UT Dallas and director of workforce development at the University's North Texas Semiconductor Institute, was Chalamala's mentor at UNT, where Gnade was chair of materials sciences.

When Chalamala was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2024, his mentor called him. As a senior advisor to the Jonsson School on efforts to generate more industry-sponsored research, Gnade thought Chalamala's experience made him uniquely equipped to help take UT Dallas' growing portfolio of battery and grid-energy research to the next level.

"Babu understands the entire power chain, from the grid level all the way to battery storage and power electronics," said Gnade, who was elected to the NAE this year. "He knows the community, knows the state of the art and knows what the Department of Energy considers the critical problems for the next 10 to 15 years."

Chalamala's joint appointments in the two Jonsson School academic departments reflect a deliberate commitment to the interdisciplinary approach that modern engineering demands.

"Engineering as a profession is no longer siloed," Chalamala said. "Once you leave the academic domain and work in industry or national labs, you work in multidisciplinary teams. That's simply the nature of it."

That philosophy extends to mentorship. Chalamala has supervised or supported dozens of postdoctoral researchers over the course of his career, many of whom have gone on to faculty positions and industry leadership roles.

"Training students, especially early-career ones, and mentoring postdocs is genuinely rewarding," he said. "You can see people taking on the ideas and the things you thought about and moving on do great things on their own."

Media Contact: Alexander Macon, UT Dallas, 972-883-6178, [email protected], or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, [email protected].