Hugh O'Connor

Dr O’Connor is a Research Fellow in the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), with research interests in electrochemical engineering, reproducibility, low-cost energy storage, 3D-printing, and open-source research hardware. He obtained his MEng in Mechanical Engineering from QUB in 2019, during which he spent a year at Caterpillar Inc. as a Mechanical Design Engineer. He subsequently completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering at QUB in 2023, focusing on the design, modelling, and testing of 3D-printed flow battery cells to improve reactant distribution and the repeatability of laboratory-scale testing. After completing his PhD, Dr O’Connor continued at QUB as a Research Fellow, developing sustainable all-liquid, all-iron flow battery chemistries. He subsequently moved into a role focused on data infrastructure for the flow battery research community. Working with Dr Bailey and collaborators at MIT, he co-led a multi-institutional reproducibility study examining inter-laboratory variability in flow battery performance testing, supporting the development of more rigorous and comparable testing practices across the field. In August 2026, he is taking up a postdoctoral position at MIT in the Brushett Group. His other research interests include lithium-ion battery thermal management and aqueous zinc batteries.