Connor Welty earned a degree in Chemistry from Whitman College (Washington, USA) in 2017. He helped lead research on heavy metal contamination of fish and soil from anthropogenic sources. From 2017 to 2019, he investigated Li-ion and lead acid battery charge storage mechanisms at Black Diamond Structures in Austin, Texas. His work there focused on optimizing anodes by incorporating carbon nanotubes into the active material. In 2019, he began PhD in the Stadie group at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. There, he examined the relationship between topology and energy storage characteristics of three-dimensionally porous frameworks such as zeolite-templated carbons (ZTCs) and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). In 2022, Connor was selected for a 6-month fellowship at MIT to work with Mircea Dincă’s group. At MIT, he synthesized and electrochemically characterized lanthanide based MOFs to understand how electrons diffuse through the material’s framework. In 2024, he graduated from MSU with a PhD in Chemisty, having produced a body of research on ‘beyond’ lithium chemistry with an emphasis on sodium and potassium as next generation charge transfer ions.

• Metal-ion batteries
• Topology dependent charge storage
• Surface and interfacial chemistry

• Electrochemistry: cell construction and characterization
• Physical chemistry
• Metal-organic frameworks

• Honors and awards
• EPSCoR Research Fellow