Ram Manthiram

Ram Manthiram, professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been selected as the winner of the 2025 Olin Palladium Award from The Electrochemical Society. 

The Olin Palladium Award was established in 1950 for distinguished contributions to the field of electrochemical or corrosion science. Formal recognition of this honor will take place during the 248th ECS Meeting in Chicago this October. 

Manthiram joined the University of Texas at Austin as a postdoctoral researcher in 1986 and became Assistant Professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1991. He was promoted to the rank of Professor in 2000 and he currently holds the George T. & Gladys H. Abell Endowed Chair of Engineering. He served as the Director of the Texas Materials Institute and the Materials Science and Engineering Graduate Program for 11 years during 2011 - 2022.

In addition, he directs a large, productive research group in electrochemical energy technologies with about 30 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. He has trained and mentored more than 300 students and postdoctoral researchers, including the graduation of 77 PhD students. Among them, 60 are faculty around the world and several hold leadership positions in industry. His current research is focused on rechargeable batteries. Specifically, his group is engaged in developing low-cost, efficient, durable materials for batteries and a fundamental understanding of their structure-property-performance relationships. Manthiram has authored more than 1,000 journal articles and 22 issued patents. He has given 550 presentations, including 450 invited talks around the world. He has more than 132,000 citations and an h-index of 176. He is a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher every year since 2017, which places him one among 6,200 scientists/engineers in all fields in the world.