Though not widely known in pop culture, Dr. Christina Lampe-Önnerud is a Swedish chemist, battery inventor, entrepreneur, and an important part of a growing industry.
She has made several appearances at innovation conferences to talk about entrepreneurship, her research, and her goals. Among her achievements include the invention of ‘lego-block’-like battery cells that, when connected together, can provide immense power for a variety of services.
Lampe-Önnerud hopes to create an overall system that uses energy efficiently but in a way that is practical. She describes it as being able to self-prescribe the use of energy one would need in order to accomplish different tasks throughout the day. This would allow control over the amount of time the battery lasts for or, in the case of automobiles, the distance travelled.
She is also a founder of Boston Power, a Massachusetts-based company that manufactures and markets internationally-used lithium-ion batteries for transportation, utility energy storage, and portable power. She also founded Candenza Innovation Inc. in 2012, which “is poised to become a world leader in battery architecture, performance, and safety, with a mission to solve big problems through innovation in technology.”
With at least 20 years of experience in the battery industry and two companies under her belt, she has built a solid reputation among her peers and continues to push innovation to new levels.
Lampe-Önnerud is a leader in her field who has inspired many women across the globe. As both an inventor and an entrepreneur, she has taken many great risks — like quitting her consulting job at a technology firm to start her own company — to pursue her goals of revitalizing the way we use energy as a society.
Due to her efforts, Lampe-Önnerud now holds partnerships with the likes of HP and ASUS in battery development and holds over 80 patents to her name.
This article is published as part of a series of profiles in honour of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on February 11.
