Dr. Ananya Rao

Dr. Ananya Rao leads a materials research group working on the problem that stands between renewable energy and reliability: storage that is cheap enough, durable enough, and sourced without the geopolitical fragility of lithium. Her lab’s work on sodium-ion and iron-air chemistries is part of a global race to make the grid’s weakest link its strongest.

She is also among the most quoted sceptics of storage hype — a scientist who insists that chemistry, not capital, sets the schedule. “The battery does not care about your announcement,” she told a conference last year, to an audience of investors who needed to hear it.