#18 - Jill Pestana: STEM Communication, Lithium Ion Batteries, and Navigating Harassment

Jill Pestana is a battery scientist, YouTuber, and consultant. She was previously the lead of the North American Battery team at Accenture, where she consulted on projects all across the battery supply chain - from raw materials, to recycling, to manufacturing. Jill has a YouTube channel, Across the Nanoverse, where she explains technical battery topics in a super easy-to-understand and engaging way. She also just officially started her new company, Pestana Solutions, which offers technical consulting! In this episode, we talk about Jill’s journey into the battery field, starting with her experience growing up in a STEM-centered household, then onto her experiments with fuel cells, and finally batteries. Jill shares the resistance she faced being a woman during her time at university, and her advice and experience overcoming that.And finally, we end the conversation off with an engaging demonstration of how a lithium ion battery works, and why we even chose that chemistry! Where to find Jill: Personal WebsiteAcross the Nanoverse (YouTube)