Dr. Katherine Ayers is Vice President of R&D for Nel Hydrogen US, with responsibility for developing and executing Nel’s technology strategy in proton exchange membrane electrolysis. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry at Caltech and spent 10 years in the battery industry before joining Nel in 2007. Dr. Ayers manages a broad portfolio of projects across a range of collaborators in academia, industry, and National Labs. Her team is primarily responsible for Nel’s stack activities from development of advanced cell stack materials, designs and manufacturing processes, spanning the product development process from fundamentals to implementation.

Dr. Ayers is recognized across the industry as an expert in electrochemical devices. She has served on multiple scientific advisory boards for Energy Frontier Research Centers and similar consortia, as well as two Federal level advisory committees for DOE: HTAC (Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Technical Advisory Committee, 2015-19), and BESAC (Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, 2019-2021). She received R&D Awards at the 2012 and 2021 DOE Merit Reviews from the HFTO Production Team, and an American Chemical Society Women Chemists Committee 2014 Rising Stars Award. She became a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society in 2020.