The 3rd International Online Conference on Corrosion and Materials Degradation

Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Pennsylvania State University, USA;
Prof. Dr. Mirna Urquidi-Macdonald is Professor Emeritus at The Pennsylvania State University, Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics. Owner of Sabrina Technology, Tom-the-Atom, science books for children and youths, and authored 41 Books. She has written over 300 scholarly papers, published one book and two book chapters, and supervised more than 40 graduate students. Her research interests revolved around designing and creating Mathematical Models based on classical and Data mining tools to solve engineering, medical, and scientific problems.

University of Vigo, School of Industrial Engineering, University Campus, Vigo, Spain;
Nóvoa, X. Ramón was born in Dozón, Pontevedra, Spain in 1957. He received the Licentiate degree in Chemistry from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in 1980 and the Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the same university, in 1984. From 1985 to 1992 he pursued several postdoctoral stages in Manchester (Univ.) and Paris (CNRS). From 1987 to 1997 he was lecturer at the University of Vigo, and since 1997 he has been tenured professor in chemical engineering in this university. He is the author of more than 150 articles in refereed journals. His research interests include corrosion of steel in concrete, electrochemical techniques for corrosion control, applications of the EIS, and Li-ion batteries. He is referee on more than 20 journals, and holds six patents. Prof. Nóvoa was a recipient of the annual award of the Spanish Society of Materials in 2006. He is member of the ISE, NACE and ASTM societies.

School of Engineering (Civil Engineering), The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia;
Professor Robert Melchers is an internationally recognized authority in structural engineering, specializing in structural reliability and the long-term deterioration of critical infrastructure. With a PhD from the University of Cambridge and a career spanning several decades, his pioneering research has redefined global standards for the safety and resilience of offshore and marine engineering. His work focuses on the development of sophisticated probabilistic models for marine corrosion and the deterioration of reinforced concrete. In 2006, the International Ship Structures Committee adopted his corrosion models for the condition assessment of aged ship structures—a testament to the global industrial impact of his research. Professor Melchers has been a leading voice in understanding the influence of bacterial and microbiological activity on seawater corrosion, providing new mathematical interpretations that are essential for the oil, gas, and water industries. A former Australian Professorial Fellow and recipient of the prestigious Australian Research Council ‘DORA’ (Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award), Professor Melchers has published over 400 refereed journal papers and four influential books, including Structural Reliability Analysis and Prediction. Beyond academia, he was a founding Principal of AMOG Consulting and the founding editor of the Australian Journal of Structural Engineering. In recognition of his significant national and international contributions to the profession, he was awarded the Engineers Australia John Connell Medal in 2013. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and continues to serve as a vital consultant on high-level technical committees for infrastructure and maritime safety.

Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada;
Roger Newman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto. After receiving his degrees from the University of Cambridge, he spent several years at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island before returning to the UK in 1984. He then spent 20 years, to the day, at the Corrosion and Protection Centre in the former UMIST, now absorbed into the University of Manchester. In 2004 he moved to the University of Toronto (UofT), where he held an Industrial Research Chair in association with the nuclear power industry. He retired from UofT in 2025. Roger's research has focused on passivity, localized corrosion and stress corrosion cracking of metals. He has also worked extensively on metallic nanomaterials synthesized by dealloying. He has close links with partners in the oil-and-gas and pulp-and-paper industries, as well as his long-standing association with the nuclear power industry. He has received many of the international awards and fellowships given for corrosion research. He now lives in the lakeside beach town of Cobourg, Ontario, where he continues to do some research and teaching at UofT, and to advise industry partners.

1. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University Clayton, Clayton, Australia 2. ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre on Surface Engineering for Advanced Materials, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia;
Professor Rhys Jones is a globally recognized expert in structural integrity, fatigue, and the life-extension of aging aircraft and infrastructure. Based at Monash University, he is the founder of the Centre of Expertise in Structural Mechanics, a long-standing collaboration with the Australian Department of Defence. His career is distinguished by his pioneering work in fracture mechanics and aerospace sustainability. Professor Jones has led the development of advanced repair technologies—most notably the use of composite patches to repair cracked metallic structures—which have saved international defense forces and commercial airlines billions of dollars in replacement costs. His research into the additive manufacturing of aerospace-grade metals and the development of "digital twins" for structural health monitoring continues to push the boundaries of modern engineering. In recognition of his immense service to the field, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). A prolific researcher, Professor Jones has authored hundreds of high-impact publications and several books that serve as definitive guides on structural life assessment. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) and remains a vital advisor to global aerospace and defense industries on the safety and longevity of complex structures.

Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada;
Jingli Luo is a professor in the College of Materials Science and Engineering at Shenzhen University and serves as a doctoral supervisor. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and an internationally recognized expert in electrochemical energy materials and corrosion protection. Formerly a professor at the University of Alberta and Canada’s Chief Scientist in Alternative Fuel Cells, her research focuses on solid oxide fuel cells, energy conversion catalysts, and corrosion science. She has published over 470 papers in top scientific journals, developed high‑performance energy conversion systems, and was named among the global top 2% of scientists and a highly cited researcher.

Research Group Sustainable Materials Science (SMS), Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium;
Tom Depover is an Associate Professor at Ghent University and serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Curtin University, with a focused research career in hydrogen embrittlement and environmentally assisted fracture of materials. His work spans environment‑sensitive fracture, material characterization, mechanical properties and behavior of materials, sustainable materials science, and hydrogen trapping and diffusion. He earned his PhD in Materials Engineering with a specialization in hydrogen embrittlement and has developed deep expertise in microstructure‑property relationships, mechanical testing, advanced microscopy (including SEM analysis), and materials testing methodologies. His research contributes to understanding and mitigating the degradation of structural materials in hydrogen environments, with numerous publications exploring hydrogen interactions, transport, and embrittlement mechanisms in steels and alloys.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India;
Prof. Alankar is a faculty member at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. His research areas are Crystal Plasticity, Multiscale Computational Mechanics, Machine learning for Science and Engineering, Materials Informatics. He graduated with a B.Tech degree at IIT Roorkee, India, MASc degree at The University of British Columbia, Canada and PhD at Washington State University, USA. After doctoral degree, he did postdoctoral research at Max-Planck Institut fur Eisenforshung, Germany and at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA. Subsequently he joined Modumetal, Inc. at Seattle, USA where he was responsible for design and architecture of nanolaminate alloys for high wear and corrosion resistance. Currently Mr. Alankar is a Professor at IIT Bombay in Mechanical Engineering Department. His area of research consists of materials informatics, crystal plasticity modeling and multiscale mechanics. He has authored and co-authored several research articles. He is a reviewer for several prominent scientific journals in the area of mechanics of materials. Current Activities: Development of open-source codes for multiscale modeling, crystal plasticity, materials informatics, material design.

The Durability of Engineering Materials Group, Institute for Building Materials (IfB), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland;
Prof. Dr. Ueli Angst obtained his degrees in civil engineering from ETH Zurich in Switzerland (MSc) and from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, in Trondheim, Norway (PhD, 2011). From 2011 to 2016, he held a part-​​time position as Postdoc at the Institute for Building Materials at ETH Zurich, and simultaneously I held a part-​​time position as a corrosion consultant at the Swiss Society for Corrosion Protection, which is the leading agency in the field of corrosion in Switzerland. In 2017, he established my research group at ETH Zurich, thanks to an assistant professorship grant by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2016) as well as an ERC Starting Grant (2019). In June 2024, Prof. Angst was promoted to an associate professor at ETH Zurich.