Rachel Carter

Rachel A. Carter is an American mechanical engineer whose research focuses on rechargeable batteries for energy storage, including improvements to the design of sodium–sulfur batteries, lithium-ion batteries, and sodium-ion batteries.^[1][2][3] She is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Kansas.^[4]

Carter is the granddaughter of Donald L. Kinser,^[5] a mechanical engineering professor at Vanderbilt University;^[2] her mother, Cynthia D. Kinser, became Chief Justice of Virginia.^[5] She chose mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt for both her undergraduate and graduate education,^[2] completing her Ph.D. there in 2017^[4] under the supervision of Cary Pint. Her doctoral research involved the development of the first room-temperature sodium-sulfur batteries.^[2][5]

In 2017, she joined the United States Naval Research Laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher, working there on the safety of lithium-ion batteries in aerospace applications with Corey T. Love. She became a full-time researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory in 2019, at the same time changing her focus to the design of sodium-ion batteries.^[2] In 2026, she moved to the University of Kansas as an associate professor.^[4]

Carter was a 2025 recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.^[1]

• Rachel Carter publications indexed by Google Scholar