Ann Marie Sastry


Ann Marie Sastry is an American engineer, educator, and businessperson. She was President of Sakti3, a solid-state battery company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Sastry was the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Mechanical, Biomedical and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan from 1995–2012.

Biography

Sastry got her bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Delaware as a Eugene I. DuPont Scholar. She later received a PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University. She joined the University of Michigan as a faculty member in 1995. While at the University of Michigan, she founded and directed GM/UM Advanced Battery Coalition for Drivetrains and Energy Systems Engineering graduate program.

Research

Sastry has worked in a variety of fields, including composite materials, percolation phenomena, diabetes, and battery materials, design and optimization. Her work has been cited over 6400 times.

Business and technology

Sastry co-founded the solid-state battery company Sakti3 in 2008 as a spin-out of her university lab, with several of her students. The company was headquartered in Michigan, one of most economically hard-hit states in the United States.. Despite Michigan’s lack of financial strength, the state granted millions of dollars to Sakti3, in the hopes it could develop a viable technology that could create permanent jobs. Sakti3 at one time claimed an intellectual property portfolio of 94 patents and patents pending. Sakti3 was acquired by Dyson in October, 2015, with the expectation that Sakti’s battery technology could help Dyson become an electric car manufacturer However, by April, 2017, Dyson determined the patents had no utility and abandoned Sakti3’s entire patent portfolio and cancelled its $200,000 per year licensing agreement. Eight months after Dyson announced that they had relinquished Sakti3’s core battery patents, Sastry departed Dyson amid doubts in the field regarding her main claim, asserted repeatedly- that she was on the verge of commercializing much-sought-after solid state battery technology. In October, 2019, Dyson announced that it had scrapped its electric car project altogether.

Controversy

Former employees, have criticized the company. Fabio Albano, Marc Langlois, and Steve Buckingham claimed that the company’s early patents and methods were useless and that Sakti3 was using an unscalable stacked cell configuration.
Claims made by the company over technological advances as well as its secretive behavior regarding sharing data have been criticized by former employees and media following the acquisition by Dyson. The only independently verified data on Sakti3’s prototypes by the United States Department of Energy show a capacity of 2.4 mAh, only capable of powering very small devices. Steve Buckingham, a former employee, has publicly expressed his disappointment with the small area of the best cell produced. Bob Kruse, formerly GMs most senior electric vehicle executive, stayed on as COO for less than 2 years. In November, 2017 Ann Marie Sastry, Sakti3’s founder, unexpected and quiet exit from the company stoked speculation that the company oversold their early successes.

Awards and honors

Sastry has won multiple awards and honors including 1997 NSF PECASE Award, Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award of the ASME in 2007 and Frank Kreith Award of the ASME in 2011. She was named an ASME fellow in 2004.

Volunteer and non-profit roles

Sastry has served as a volunteer and board director for charitable and non-profit organizations related to poverty alleviation and clean technology, including IHN Alpha House and the ICCT.