Jill Pestana is a battery scientist, physicist, patent holder, educator, and entrepreneur with 13 years of speaking experience. Her atypical journey as a scientist and entrepreneur gives her audience a unique perspective on leadership, technology, social issues, and innovation.
Jill’s creative and curious nature is evident whether she’s speaking, researching, playing music, dancing salsa, painting, backpacking, or recording for YouTube. Her channel ‘Across the Nanoverse’ has attracted a committed base of STEM followers.
Jill is on a mission to accelerate a sustainable future through intersectional innovation – innovation through both a technological and social lens to both end oppression and give human and environmental health the opportunity to flourish.
Select Speaking Topics
Increasing sales through science communication
Traditional sales techniques for scientific and engineering equipment are fast becoming outdated as new forms of media evolve. Furthermore, as technology advances it becomes more interdisciplinary and complex. Scientists and engineers must quickly acquire new skills and knowledge to solve these interdisciplinary challenges. Jill shares how by selling through science communication and new media forms, you not only help customers build their knowledge, but also connect their problem to your solution. Her expertise in science communication, research and development, and scientific equipment operation give her insights into best practices for mutually beneficial business relationship-building for sales success.
Maximizing Team Potential through a Culture of Inclusion
With the need for creativity and innovation across industries, organizational leadership must learn how to maximize their team potential by expressing their team’s talent. Jill shares insights from her leadership experience and research-backed techniques so that managers can immediately take action to bring out the best in their teams while professionally handling conflict resolution.
You’re Not Overreacting: Recognizing and Navigating Inappropriate Behavior at Work and School
Throughout her career in physics and engineering, Jill faced obstacles like bias and harassment. After her career was nearly derailed due to workplace abuse, she committed herself to helping others learn the essential skills and knowledge to avoid and navigate difficult situations involving bias, harassment, and discrimination at work and school. In this talk Jill shares how to recognize illegal behavior and how to use The Resilience Mindset and Reporting Framework, two processes she developed for coping with and navigating workplace bullying or harassment.
From Underestimated to Leader: Creating Your Own Opportunities
When people underestimate you, you can be overlooked for opportunities. People’s assumptions and apathy should not limit you. You are destined for more. Jill spent her education and early-career creating her own opportunities in order to learn leadership and scientific skills and grow professionally and personally. From creating organizations and businesses to building relationships, she learned how to self-coach and grow into an industry leader outside of the traditional path. Now, she works with brands like Ford as a Lead Talent and founded her consulting firm Pestana Solutions to advise on battery technology R+D as well as media consulting. Jill shares her insights for creating your own opportunities based on your strengths and unique talents so that you can carve your own path towards your personal definition of success.
Testimonials
I discovered your channel yesterday, I can’t stop watching your videos. The videos are great quality and very informative, very helpful to masters students like me. Great job Jill. I wish you all the success with your hard work.
– YouTube subscriber
I started to learn EIS with your videos and I fell in love with the way you teach 🙂
– Battery PhD candidate
Thank you so much for making the new videos… It was superb and really well explained from basics, of electromagnetic induction, to how to connect and record EIS using 2 and 4 probe setup.
– Battery Scientist
Thank you so much! I am an undergraduate researcher in a hydrogen fuel cell lab. I study chemical engineering, but we don’t really learn much about circuits besides the one class I’ve had to take. So I really appreciate how well you explained EIS in this video, and it’s so awesome to see more female representation in science!
– YouTube subscriber
I saw your C-rate video on YouTube last night. I saw how you can make complicated subjects to simple level that anyone can grasp it, it is a talent that you have, and I saw most of your videos last night because I stuck to them by your great explanation. They are extremely excellent and just wanted to thank you million times for all the great work that you do free to elevate others knowledge.
– Technical Specialist for Marine Electromobility Dept., Volvo Penta
Let’s inspire innovation together.
Speaking Highlights
2023
- Invited lecturer for the Modern Education Society’s College of Engineering, Pune (Wadia College Campus) International Symposium & Workshop on EV Technology and Battery Modeling” on the topic: “Overview of Li-Ion Battery Chemistry”
- Speaker and subject matter expert at the Recharge Industries 2023 Battery Conference speaking on topics including the state of the energy transition in North America and digital strategy and digital twins in battery manufacturing.
2022
- Presenter for Volta Foundation’s JEDI Webinar Event: “Maximizing Team Potential Through a Culture of Inclusion”
- Lead Talent for the Ford F-150 Lightning “Talk about Trucks” series
- Creator of 3 science education YouTube videos for Electric Goddess in partnership with Admiral Instruments: 5 Best Practices for EIS , Selecting PEIS vs GEIS , Voltammetry Tips: CV and LSV + Demos!
- Presenter for Hioki’s unveiling of the Slurry Analyzer: Build Better Battery Cells Faster
- Invited Lecturer for UC Irvine’s Management Beyond the Classroom (MBC) Program: Maximizing Team Potential through a Culture of Inclusion
- Speaker at the Volta Foundation’s JEDI webinar: Maximizing Team Potential through a Culture of Inclusion
- Invited speaker for the Project Management Institute (PMI) – Silicon Valley: Maximizing Team Potential through a Culture of Inclusion
2021
- Invited Speaker at ReJoule: Electromigration in Battery Systems (presented on behalf of Electric Goddess)
- Speaker at Battery Associates’ Clubhouse session “Battery Revolution 43 – Intersectional Innovation”
- Lecturer for Battery Associates’ Fall 2021 Battery MBA program: Lithium-Ion Battery Anode Technologies
- Invited Lecturer for UC Irvine’s Management Elective Course: Maximizing Team Potential through a Culture of Inclusion
- Podcast Creator and Host: Resilient in STEM.
- Invited Speaker: Lithium Ion Batteries and the Renewable Energy Future (Sponsored by Hioki USA)
- Invited Speaker on the Multipassionaire Podcast: “Electrochemistry, Lithium Batteries + Inventions”
- UC Irvine Featured Alumni & Invited Speaker: “Engineer to Entrepreneur”
- Invited Speaker on Industry Explorers: “Avoiding Toxic Workplaces”
2020
- Leader and Presenter of SAT Math Prep Workshop for high school girls through WriteGirl LA
- Invited Speaker on Professor Dave Debates podcast titled “The Future of Car Batteries”
- Invited Speaker on the The People Engineer Podcast
- Invited Speaker on an Instagram Live talk with @girlchangetheworld (Lorena Soriano, founder of Every Point One).
2019
- Creator and Host of Across the Nanoverse, the YouTube Channel
- Featured on “Hanging with Unboxd”, a platform working to change the narrative around women in science in the media.
2018
- Chair of the Society of Women Engineers – Orange County 2018 Professional Development Conference, where she gave a welcome address and coordinated the day-long event with multiple speakers.
2016
- “Nuclear Policy Working Group: A Model for Next Generation Nuclear Security Education”; Poster presentation at the University and Industry Technical Interchange (UITI) Conference, Raleigh, NC, June 2016.
- Won the People’s Choice award for “How Batteries Age”; Poster Presentation, Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, CA, May 2016.
Additional Invited Talks
Jill Pestana, “Importance of Educational Centers in STEM Education”; Invited talk at Grand Opening of Dr. Sally Ride Center for Environmental Science, Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, CA, October 2012.
Technical Presentations
Jill Pestana, Dr. Aron Varga, Dr. Yohannes Abate, “Near-field Nanoscopy of Cesium Dihydrogen Phosphate” (Honors Thesis); Oral Presentation, CSULB Physics Research Presentations: CSULB, December 2012.
Jill Pestana, Dr. Aron Varga, Dr. Yohannes Abate, “Near-field Nanoscopy of Cesium Dihydrogen Phosphate” (Honors Thesis); Poster Presentation, Physics Congress Conference (PhysCon): Orlando, FL, December 2012.
Jill Pestana, Dr. Aron Varga, Dr. Yohannes Abate, “Investigation of Cesium Hydrogen Sulfate”; Poster Presentation, Women in Physics Conference: Stanford University/SLAC, January 2012.
Jill Pestana, Dr. Jiyeong Gu, “Magnetic Proximity Effect of Niobium-Permalloy Thin Films”; Oral Presentation, Women in Physics Conference: University of Southern California, January 2011.
Jill Pestana, Dr. Jiyeong Gu, “Magnetic Proximity Effect of Niobium-Permalloy Thin Films”; Oral Presentation, APS Conference: Caltech, Oral Presentation, October 2010.
Jill Pestana, Dr. Jiyeong Gu, “Magnetic Proximity Effect of Niobium-Permalloy Thin Films”; Poster Presentation, CSULB College of Natural Science and Mathematics Poster Presentations, September 2010.
Pestana Solutions 