Aaron Thomas is a PhD student in Materials Science at the University of Washington, hailing from western New York. His research interests are in the development of clean energy storage mechanisms in the Jun Liu group, to support the growth of renewable energy. He is currently focusing on characterization of interphases formed in cycling of lithium metal-sulfur batteries, in the hopes of understanding the behavior at these interfaces through in-situ and ex-situ analysis. He began his work in energy storage as a second-year undergraduate at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he later earned bachelor’s degrees in Materials Science and Chinese language studies. Before starting at UW, he has held research positions at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnology at Sandia national labs. In his free time, Aaron enjoys playing piano, and traveling for landscape photography.