since 1986, goodenough has been a professor at the university of texas at austin. during his time there, he has worked on research on ionic conducting solids and electrochemical devices. he wanted to study to fix materials for batteries to help create electric vehicles and help end the use of fossil fuels. goodenough discovered the polyanion class of cathodes. they showed that positive electrodes having polyanions, sulfates, create higher voltages than oxides because of the inductive effect of the polyanion.