Alex Schraiber is the senior manager of Fire Research and Development at UL Solutions, where she leads a multidisciplinary team advancing fire safety testing for emerging technologies.
As a working manager and engineer, she guides projects that connect scientific insight with real-world applications — helping manufacturers, regulators and communities trust that innovation and safety evolve together.
Safer battery technology
Alex completed her Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and her Master of Science in fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. Following an internship at UL Solutions, Alex joined the company full-time in 2017. Her early exposure to our laboratories and research confirmed what would become her career mission: using fire safety engineering to help protect life, property and first responders while enabling progress.
Building on this foundation, Alex and the fire research team have established a long history of evolving with emerging challenges. Their work at UL Solutions has helped advance safety science across a wide range of areas, including bench-scale materials test development, fire protection systems testing, fire modeling and explosion research — critical disciplines that support safer products and environments worldwide.
Today, Alex is focused on battery safety and energy storage systems, addressing hazards and conducting large-scale fire testing — areas where technology advances quickly, and risk must be precisely understood.
She has played key roles in developing:
- UL 9540A, the Test Method for Evaluating Thermal Runaway Fire Propagation in Battery Energy Storage Systems
- UL 9540B, the Outline of Investigation for Large-Scale Fire Tests for Residential Battery Energy Storage Systems
- UL 5800, the Standard for Battery Fire Containment Products
By helping to design test methods that reveal how products behave under extreme conditions, such as those related to battery and aviation safety, Alex helps manufacturers set expectations, anticipate hazards, refine designs and demonstrate reliability in performance.
Test methods and fire research
Alex Schraiber champions the advancement of fire safety engineering, measuring success not by spectacle but by prevention. Her vision is a future where safety and technology progress together, reinforcing systems that protect people, property and the environment.
Her leadership extends across the UL Solutions enterprise through collaboration with the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), part of UL Research Institutes, and UL Standards & Engagement — uniting research, testing and standardization to advance global safety, trust and innovation across industries. She also serves as president of the Chicago Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, bridging industry and the fire service to empower collective understanding between stakeholders, practitioners, regulators and code officials.
UL Solutions founder, William Henry Merrill, Jr., was an engineer who established the principle “know by test and state the facts” more than a century ago. Alex embodies that legacy through her work to create a safer world — one carefully tested breakthrough at a time.
“What we get to do here is carry forward more than a century of safety science. When new hazards emerge, we create the testing that helps manage risk and preserve public trust — so people can feel confident that the products they rely on won’t cause harm.” — Alex Schraiber
Panels and boards
Industry leadership
- Member, Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE)
- President (current); former vice president, treasurer and secretary, SFPE Chicago Chapter
- Member, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
Standards development and technical committees
- UL 9540/UL 9540A Technical Committee (TC 9540) – Active participant; task group chair for large-scale fire test revisions
- UL 9540B Development Group – Contributor to test methods for battery energy storage safety
- UL 5800 Development Team – Lead developer of test methods for aviation fire safety
- NFPA 855 Technical Committee (Energy Storage Systems) – Contributor; member of multiple revision task groups (2023-2026 cycle)
Councils and cross-enterprise collaboration
- UL Fire Council – Secretary
- UL Research Institutes, FSRI – Research collaborator
- UL Standards & Engagement – Standards development partner
- Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) – Collaborator on aviation safety research and test development
Connect with Alex Schraiber
Attributed content
Conference presentations
- Schraiber, A. (2025). Large-scale fire testing and UL 9540A: Addressing European lithium-ion battery fire safety challenges. In SFPE Conference, Lisbon, Portugal.
- Schraiber, A. (2025). Research for ESS safety and standards development. In Battery Energy Storage Systems Fire Safety Symposium, Sacramento, California: Cal Fire.
- Schraiber, A. (2025). Translating data into standards: Battery fire propagation research supporting ESS and EV safety and standards development. In ASEAN Battery Safety & Innovation Conference, Singapore: Singapore Battery Consortium.
- Schraiber, A., & Slone, R. (2023). Lithium-ion battery safety through testing. In FDNY Insurance Workshop, New York City: The Fire Department of the City of New York.
- Schraiber, A., Barowy, A., & DeCrane, S. (2023). Challenges for fire responders with lithium-ion batteries in a residential setting. In NFPA Conference & Expo, Las Vegas: National Fire Protection Association.