Abhineet

Abhineet Nigam

Battery Engineer II

WHOOP

    Education

    MS Chem Eng. & Data Science
          U of Washington, Seattle
    MSc. Chemistry, BITS Pilani (India)
    BE Chemical Eng. BITS Pilani (India)

Hey! Welcome to my corner of the web

I am a battery engineer at WHOOP. I graduated after pursuing a masters in chemical engineering & Data Science at the at University of Washington, Seattle. Previously, I worked as Research Assistant at the Indian Institute of Science, Banglore, India. My research focuses on energy storage techniques ranging from Lithium-ion batteries to fuel cells.

I completed my undergraduatae studies in May 2020 after pursuing an integrated course in BE (Hons) Chemical Engineering, with M.Sc. (Hons.) Chemistry, at BITS Pilani-Goa, India. Research, especially on technologies related to energy storage and production has been one my major interest areas and have also been a part of many startups working on the same. I seldom write as well about life and everything in it on my blog Inked By Abhineet.

Please reach out to me if you’d like to chat with me!

Tech Skills

  • Battery Management Systems
  • State of charge estimation
  • State of health estimation
  • Battery Pack Balancing and Power estimation
  • Equivalent Circuit Modelling
  • Java / C / Python / MatLab
  • Android Development
  • MySQL
  • Business strategy and market research

Certifications

  • Battery Management Systems

    University of Colorado System

  • Battery Pack Balancing and power estimation

    University of Colorado System

  • Equivalent Circuit Modelling

    University of Colorado System

  • State of charge/health estimation

    University of Colorado System

  • Algorithmic Trading and design

    Indian school of Business

  • Financial Markets

    Yale university

Conferences and Workshops

  • Poster Presentation on "Scaffold optimization for effective cell deposition."

    AICHE 2018 | Pittsburgh, PA (USA)

  • Poster presentation on "Analyzing the effects of polymer blend composition on hollow fiber membranes."

    North American Membrane Society | Date: May 2019 | Pittsburgh, PA (USA)

  • Delegate at IIM Bangalore's Business summit "VISTA"

    Organized by: Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore | Date: Sep 2018

Updates

[July 2024] Published a research publication titled "Dendrite Growth—Microstructure—Stress—Interrelations in Garnet Solid-State Electrolyte" in Advanced Energy Materials on the work I did at IISc Bangalore, India back in 2020


[June 2022] Joined WHOOP as a Battery Engineer. My first job in the corporate world and moved to Boston from Seattle.


[June 2022] Graduated from the U of Washington with a Masters in Chemical Engineering with a specialization in Data Science.


[Jan 2022] Switched from the Research track to the data science specialization track of the MS program at U of Washington.


[Dec 2021] Got multiple job offers from companies ranging from the silicon industry to the battery industry startups.


[Sept 2021] Joined the U of Washington's MS in chemical engineering with the research track


[March 2021 ] Got admission offers from top tier universities like CMU, U of Maryland and U of Florida for pursuing masters and Phd.


[Aug 2020] Graduated from BITS Pilani and Joined IISc Bangalore as a Research Assistant


[Nov 2019] Got selected for a funded masters thesis at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore


[June 2019] Started my undergraduate thesis at the Laboratory for emerging Nanomaterials, TU Braunschweig, Germany


[Nov 2018] Got selected for a fully funded exchange program at TU Braunschweig, Germany for my undergraduate thesis. Was awarded close to INR 600K for the exchange.


[Sept 2017] Started my second club, The trekking Club at BITS Goa


[Sept 2016] Started my first club at my university, Film making club BITS Goa


[Aug 2015] Joined BITS Pilani, one of the most prominent engineering university in India for my undergrad studies


Internships & Work Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Battery Engineer II

WHOOP

As a battery engineer at WHOOP, I am responsible for managing the development and qualification of novel battery designs, both internally and through collaboration with external manufacturing partners. I support the electrical, mechanical, and firmware engineers to ensure safe integration of the batteries into WHOOP products while maintaining excellent performance in extreme conditions. I also design testing protocols for batteries and oversee the quality control of the battery supply chain through rigorous testing and quality audits along with working closely with reliability and test engineers to build a comprehensive and optimized suite of cycling, storage, and safety tests.
 
 
 
 
 

Project Assistant

Solid State Structural Chemistry Unit, IISc Bangalore (India)

Worked on various projects relating to energy storage systems
 
 
 
 
 

Product Lead

Trueno (Electride Technologies Pvt Ltd)

Worked as a product lead in a nascent startup working on solving micro-mobility problems using electric vehicles
 
 
 
 
 

Summer Intern

Reliance Industries Manufacturing Division, Nagothane, India

Performed the Mass and energy balance calculations of the Poly-Propylene Plant along with fouling factor calculations for the reactor was also performed and the results were tabulated for future reference of the plant.
 
 
 
 
 

Summer Intern

Rourkela Steel Plant, Odisha, India

Worked on a project to improve the efficiency of the Cold Rolling Mill Plant (CRM). The project involved study of various defects in the preparation of rolled steel plates and how to eliminate the defects as well as increase the production rate. I also received a letter of appreciation from my mentor for my contribution to the project.
 
 
 
 
 

Research Consultant

WorldQuant LLC

Developed 2000+ algorithmic trading strategies called alphas using statistical modeling based on companies annual report for the US, Europe, and Asian stock markets over a period of 15 months with the organization. Created strategies with Sharpe Ratio of more than 6.0 for the Asian Markets; Qualified for the International Quant championship organized by WorldQuant.

Leadership Roles

 
 
 
 
 

Coordinator - Trekking Club BITS Pilani Goa Campus

Established the trekking club in BITS Goa and lead a group of 50+ club members to promote and organize trekking excursion for the college students.
Planned and organized the clubs's first-ever 8-day Himalayan Trek to Roopkund Lake, Uttrakahnad in 2018.
Organized 9 Goan treks with a footfall of 120+ students in each; Worked with the college administration for smooth function of the club.
Handled the working and logistics of the club and finances of INR 6,50,000+ during the tenure.
 
 
 
 
 

Association Coordinator - Chemistry Association

Elected by a student body comprising of 260 people; Won by a margin of 130%; Led the college team in 5+ national events.
Engineered strategies to revive the dwindling interest in Chemistry. Delivered a 150% Y-o-Y increase in students participating in conferences and competitions.
Handled year-round finances to the tune of 3 Lakhs solely; Scripted a record-high utilization of 93% (37% Y-o-Y increase)
 
 
 
 
 

Co-Founder and Coordinator - Film Making Club BITS Goa

Established the film making club in BITS Goa and lead a group of 40+ club members to promote Film making on the campus.
Organized 7+ film making workshops and events during the tenure; Handled funds of 1 Lakhs with the utilization of over 97%.
Led the club in 5 National level film making competitions across the country and the club won a nomination in Jaipur International film festival 2018.

Research Projects

Cathode interfacing techniques for Solid-state Li-ion batteries

Under the guidance of Dr. Naga Phani B Aetukuri at Q-labs at Solid state and structural chemistry unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, I worked on Developing novel cathode materials and electrolytes for high energy density and high power Li-ion batteries and battery characterization techniques.

Electrolytes for high-power Li-ion Batteries

Under the guidance of Dr. Naga Phani B Aetukuri at Q-labs, I also worked on various electrolytes for high energy density and high power Li-ion batteries and battery characterization techniques.

Cathode materials for Li-ion batteries

Under the guidance of Dr. Naga Phani B Aetukuri at Q-labs at Solid state and structural chemistry unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, I worked on various techniques such as soft interfacing for cathode interface in a Li-ion battery.

Hybrid Electrolytes for Solid-State Li-Sulfur Batteries

During my first thesis, I worked under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Georg Garnweitner at Technical University Braunschweig, Germany as an exchange student under the DAAD German exchange student program. Here I worked on analyzing the effects of nanoparticles on the Solid State electrolyte for Lithium sulfur batteries.

Local current density analysis in solid-state electrolytes for Li-ion batteries

This project is a follow-up work of the following publication submitted for peer review (Pre-Print). Investigating strategies to mitigate Li-dendrite growth in solid-state electrolytes while interfacing with the anode. Performed computational simulations using COMSOL Multiphysics to support the experimental data. Manuscript under preparation for peer review.

Computational simulation of Diels Alder reaction

In this project under Dr. Tincy L. Thomas, Department of Chemistry, BITS Pilani where I performed computational simulation of Diels alder reaction and orbital energy calculations using MOPAC software and analyzed feasibility of the reactions.

Hollow Fiber Membranes for Water Purification

Here I worked under Prof. Anirban Roy at Birla Insitute of technology and Science, Goa campus (India) . We synthesizied hollow fiber membranes for water purification using different polymer-solvent combinations. This project was selected for poster presentation in The North American Membrane Society conference in May 2019.

Membrane Based Emergency Drinking Straw

Project was funded under the first degree project funding scheme, BITS Pilani Goa Campus. Synthesized mixed matrix hollow fiber membrane based emergency drinking straw for point-of-use drinking water system and the prototype was pitched to the Indian army for testing.

Biological Fuel cells

Here I worked under Dr. Vijayshree Nayak, Department of Biological Sciences, BITS Pilani. Studied micro-organisms that can produce electricity from brackish water including bacteria that produce hydrogen via fermentation. Also analyzed membranes of the fuel cells in order to optimize the process.

Scaffold optimization for Cell Bioreactors

Optimized the scaffold structure for profusion systems and CFD analysis of 3D scaffolds for tissue regeneration. In collaboration with Indian institute of chemical technology, Mumbai and Wake Forest University, North Carolina.