Dr. Paul Burke is a metallurgist and materials scientist with extensive experience in high-temperature electrochemistry, molten-salt systems, and industrial-scale electro-metallurgical process development. He has led multiple advanced energy andmolten-metal programs across academia, government-funded research, and private industry.
He joined the Liquid Metal Battery Project under Prof. Donald Sadoway at MIT, initially as a researcher and later as Program Manager for the ARPA-E–funded development of multi-material molten-metal batteries. In this role, he oversaw technical execution of high-temperature electrochemical systems, advanced alloy formulation, molten-salt electrolyte optimization, and reactor-scale engineering for grid-level energy storage concepts.
Dr. Burke was Vice President of R&D at Digital Alloys, where he led development of high-temperature metal-deposition technologies, reactive-metal melting systems, and precision thermal-control architectures for molten-metal 3D printing. His work included alloy handling, rapid prototyping, and the design of complex multi-metal deposition hardware operating under extreme thermalenvironments. In 2021 Dr. Burke became Chief Technology Officer at Pure Lithium, where he built and led the engineering and process development organization. His work spanned metallurgical processing, lithium-metal anode formation, materials characterization, and electrochemistry for early-stage battery manufacturing.
Dr. Burke is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Alkalinth,Inc., where he led the development of high-temperature molten salt electro-modification processes for structured copper andn ickel substrates used in next-generation lithium-metal batteries. His work includes design and operation of molten-salt reactors, electrodeposition processes, electrochemical interface engineering, and high-throughput materials validation.
Dr. Burke earned his PhD in Metallurgy & Materials Science (2011) from Dalhousie University, specializing in reactive-metal sintering, thermodynamics, and high-temperature powder based metallurgical processes.
