George Crabtree, an Argonne National Laboratory Senior Scientist and Distinguished Fellow, was the Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research from JCESR’s founding in 2012 until his death in January 2023. As JCESR Director, Dr. Crabtree directed the overall strategy and goals of the research program and operational plan, acted as liaison to executives of JCESR partner organizations, and represented JCESR with external constituencies and advisory committees.

He won numerous awards for his research, including the Kammerlingh Onnes Prize for his work on the physics of vortices in high-temperature superconductors. This prestigious prize is awarded once every three years; Dr. Crabtree was its second recipient. He also won the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Solid State Physics four times, a notable accomplishment. He won an R&D 100 Award for his pioneering development of magnetic flux imaging systems. 

Dr. Crabtree was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Charter Member of ISI’s Highly Cited Researchers in Physics, a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Dr. Crabtree published more than 440 papers in leading scientific journals, collected more than 18,000 career citations, and gave more than 150 invited talks at national and international scientific conferences. His research interests included energy storage, materials science, nanoscale superconductors and magnets, superconductivity, and highly correlated electrons in metals.

He led DOE workshops on next-generation energy storage, hydrogen, solar energy, superconductivity, and materials under extreme environments, and co-chaired the Undersecretary of Energy’s assessment of DOE’s applied energy programs. He testified before the U.S. Congress on the hydrogen economy, meeting sustainable energy challenges and energy innovation Hubs. He earned his Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics from the University of Illinois at Chicago.