Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, 2012
  • B.A., Chemistry, Colgate University, 2006

Dr. McGann's expertise is in lithium-ion batteries and battery-powered products. He advises clients in the consumer electronics, electric vehicle, energy storage, power tool, appliance, and wearable device  industries, with experience spanning battery systems of all sizes. His work focuses on product recall investigations, product safety assessments, failure analysis investigations, due diligence technology evaluation, and litigation support.

Dr. McGann advises companies on the technical aspects of product recalls. He has presented his analyses to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and has contributed to risk assessments under the European Union's Rapid Alert System for Dangerous Non-Food Products (RAPEX). Specifically, Dr. McGann has supported recall investigations involving a range of battery-powered products, including smartphones, appliances, power banks, and children's toys.

His battery expertise spans the entire lifecycle, from design, product integration and manufacturing quality control to performance testing, abuse testing and failure analysis. Dr. McGann serves on the Standards Technical Panel for UL 2849, Standard for Safety for Electrical Systems for eBikes.

Dr. McGann also routinely provides consulting support to clients requiring nondestructive analysis using computed tomography (CT) X-ray scanning for polymeric, metallic or composite components and systems, microscopic and macroscopic. He applies his experience to a range of project types, including litigation support, product design, defect detection, part to CAD analysis, failure analysis, quality control, accident investigations and many others.

Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. McGann was a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked on the development of solar thermal fuels, a class of organic molecules that store solar energy for future on-demand use as heat. His graduate research at Carnegie Mellon University was centered on highly-ordered nanoporous carbon materials derived from the pyrolysis of block copolymer precursors for improved energy storage devices, including lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors. Using a combination of characterization studies and computational modeling, he developed a multi-scale understanding of the heterogeneous material that was employed to optimize its performance in devices. Dr. McGann also has worked at Bayer MaterialScience, where he worked on the processing of carbon nanotubes as well as polymeric materials for antifouling coatings.