The Li Group’s long term goal is to understand and develop new technologies (e.g. batteries) that will play a major role in renewable energy, sustainability, and global climate change, all of which represent grand challenges for the 21st century. To accomplish this, our research program pursues two main thrusts: (1) to develop state-of-the-art experimental tools to uncover new insights and understandings for how electrochemical systems operate and fail (Science 358, 506, 2017; Science 375, 66, 2022; Nature Energy 8, 138, 2023), and (2) to demonstrate novel materials chemistry and engineering methodologies to impart enhanced performance for electrochemical systems based on the new understandings gained previously (Nature Energy 1, 15029, 2016; Nature 2023, accepted). These research thrusts are intimately linked and provide natural synergy with each other.