I have waited my whole life to write a cover letter like this. I have reached a time in my life where I feel I can suddenly see my path illuminate and the future course of my career come into focus. Since beginning my career working on a Material Science and Engineering Bachelor’s degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), I felt that I have been getting a sense for what areas in the field of materials engineering are important, which I am interested in, which are progressing excitingly, and which could use more focus. I have worked on many different projects and materials throughout my diverse career including engineering phosphors for use in lighting applications, a 3.5-year stint at Intel, working as a yield engineer for the production of a wide variety of semiconductor chip technologies, and a brief time as a fractography intern for Corning glass. It was not, however, until I worked with a little battery startup called BESS Tech in upstate New York that I really felt my career click into place. Hired as the fifth employee of a nascent battery-tech startup, I was, like everyone else, wearing a lot of hats. While the premise of the project seemed simple; test new anode morphologies to ascertain if performance can be improved, it sent me on many little journeys such as learning to chemically vapor deposit thin films, building coin cells in a glovebox, and analyzing cycle, efficiency, capacity, charge time and lifetime. This also led me to have the life-changing realization that the improvements we were observing in the data could have an incredible ripple effect of worldwide improved energy and environmental impact. This was when I decided I would get a PhD and dedicate the rest of my career to tackling the energy storage crisis that our planet finds itself in. At the University of California, Davis I once again furthered my education in Material Science and Engineering and focused my research on electrochemistry for energy harvesting and storage. Though, during my degree, I was not building battery cells per say, I *was* using three-electrode systems to either produce alternative fuels like hydrogen gas or liquid formate in the presence of an iron-based catalyst or to electrochemically deposit antimony selenide films onto a substrate for use as the absorber layer in PV solar cell devices. As I worked to perfect these electrochemical bench-top sized experiments, I kept in mind how these systems would scale up. I felt that the technology can be incredibly promising as small lab-sized batches, but it won’t make a difference to the public if it can’t be elegantly scaled-up to commercial manufacturing scale. Even at the academic lab scale, I utilized the lean six sigma yellow belt training I received at Corning and Intel to optimize my processes to save time, resources, waste, etc. I have developed a skill for optimizing systems as a whole and I use these tools to better my everyday life. With my newly acquired PhD knowledge and credentials I hope to spend the next 10 to 30 years of my career working toward greener, cleaner battery technologies. I believe that new battery and energy storage capabilities in general hold the secret to healing our environment and utilizing the incredible amounts of solar and wind energy that we have become so good at harvesting. I hope to experiment on and perhaps invent novel energy storage solutions such as easier-to-recycle batteries with longer lifetimes, greater capacity, and greener manufacturing methods because I believe that it is the best way to use my material science talent and passion to help the greatest amount of people. I hope that my passions align well with the goals of your company and that together we might truly leave a positive impact on the market, society, and the environment overall. We have the ability to save the planet and I would like to help. Sincerely, Dr. Cassondra Brayfield *Material Science and Engineering*            *[[email protected]                            ](mailto:[email protected])* *(860) 620-7042*