Safety Science Researcher Returns for Second Year as GEM Fellow at ESRI
Wins first place in Master’s and Early Ph.D. Technical Competition at 2025 GEM Conference
Michael Henderson’s journey with UL Research Institutes’ Electrochemical Safety Research Institute began in the lab, but he said it’s the lessons beyond his work with batteries that shaped his growth as a researcher and communicator.
In the summer of 2025, Henderson, who is currently studying civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, served as a returning graduate research fellow with ESRI. In his first GEM fellowship in 2024, he conducted a research project on flow batteries — building and testing flow batteries under nominal and off-nominal conditions at ESRI’s labs. At the end of his second summer fellowship, he was able to truly finalize his project by writing the manuscript and submitting it for publication.
“Last summer during my time with ESRI, I felt like that was the most I’ve ever grown academically or outside of the lab as a person,” he said. “This summer, I’ve been learning how to properly communicate my research — I had a strong understanding of designing and conducting experiments, but not how to communicate it on a technical platform.”
Henderson also participated in ULRI’s Student Engagement Program, which he said influenced his growth in unexpected ways. He benefited from having a mentor throughout his 10 weeks at ULRI, which helped him feel connected and involved as an intern working remotely.
Henderson also worked on writing a manuscript for research carried out at ESRI on using different materials and designs that would help in mitigating the propagation of thermal runaway in lithium-ion cells and batteries that are packaged for transport. His literature search helped him learn the state of art in this critical area and understand what characteristics of materials, as well as design configurations, are required in order to prevent the propagation of thermal runaway in shipping packages or battery designs.
Henderson said that he’s proud his research contributes to the global push toward electrification and the need for sustainable energy solutions. “With all of the issues surrounding lithium-ion battery usage, this could open up opportunities for new energy storage systems like these types of [flow] batteries that could take their place,” he said. “They’ve proven to be safer and stronger, but there aren’t extensive bodies of work on how safe they are under off-nominal conditions. This work fills that gap and can influence standards for operating and manufacturing these systems.”
