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Biography for David McNulty
Role: Associate Professor of Energy Materials and Devices
Email: david.mcnulty@ul.ie
Location: MS1-015, MSSI Building
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Dr. David McNulty is an Associate Professor of Energy Materials and Devices in the Department of Physics and a member of the Bernal Institute, in the . His research focuses on the synthesis, structural, and electrochemical characterisation of advanced materials for energy storage applications, specifically for lithium-ion, sodium-ion, lithium–sulfur, sodium–sulfur, and magnesium–sulfur batteries. David has a strong focus on advanced structural characterisation techniques, including operando X-ray diffraction, operando Raman spectroscopy, operando small-angle X-ray spectroscopy, and online electrochemical mass spectroscopy.
David received his B.Sc. in Applied Physics from the 51ÉçÇø, in 2009 and his PhD from the Department of Physics in the 51ÉçÇø in 2014. His PhD thesis focused on the synthesis, structural and electrochemical performance of vanadium pentoxide nanostructures as cathode materials for advanced lithium-ion batteries. Following this, David worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Chemistry in University College Cork (UCC) from 2014 – 2018. During this time, he researched the synthesis, and electrochemical characterisation of metal oxide and semiconductor nanostructures as anode and cathode materials for Li-ion batteries. While researching in UCC, David was awarded a prestigious Royal Irish Academy Charlemont Grant to investigate inverse opal structured battery electrode materials. David also gained lecturing experience while working in the School of Chemistry where he taught introductory chemistry to undergraduate students.
From 2018 – 2020 David worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Electrochemistry Laboratory of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland where his research focused on lithium–sulfur batteries. David returned to UL in 2020 to work as a postdoctoral researcher as part of a Confirm Centre funded project to develop bespoke batteries for autonomous mobile robots. In 2020, David was awarded an SFI Future Innovator Prize to lead a Team under the Plastics Challenge stream. From 2021-2022 David lectured in the Department of Physics in UL, where he taught solid state and condensed matter physics to 4th year B.Sc. and M.Sc. students. In 2021 David won a prestigious Marie Curie COFUND Fellowship as part of the ADMIRE programme through the AMBER Centre to investigate the conversion of plastic waste into porous carbons for use in lithium–sulfur batteries. Following this, in 2022 David was awarded an SFI-IRC Pathway Programme Grant to expand his research on advanced lithium–sulfur batteries. The Pathway award enabled David to begin his independent research career and establish his own research group. In 2023 David was co-lead applicant for a successfully funded SFI Research Infrastructure award, securing > €1.4 million to develop the Solid-State Battery Analysis and Testing (SS-BAT) Facility. In 2024 David became a permanent member of the Department of Physics. In 2025, David secured > €475k as a partner of the HighMag project, a Horizon Europe project, funded through the European Commission.