Corrosion Subgroup

Tony Horner

Senior Specialist, Nuclear Plant Corrosion, Rolls-Royce

Tony started his career in 1990 at Rolls-Royce where he developed an interest in materials science and engineering, particularly in relation to environmental degradation and integrity of structural alloys. He’s held a range of technical, managerial and leadership roles throughout his career at Serco (now Amentum), Rolls-Royce, and The University of Manchester – where he was the Chief Technology Officer for the Henry Royce Institute (National Institute for Advanced Materials and Materials Innovation).

Tony obtained his PhD at The University of Birmingham in 2008 through studying the transition from localised corrosion to environmentally assisted cracking in steam turbine disc steels for the power generation industry as part of an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)/Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) funded programme in conjunction with The National Physical Laboratory (NPL).

He previously Chaired a sub-committee on Engine Impacts and Materials for SAE International and was Chair of the European Cooperative Group on Corrosion Monitoring of Nuclear Materials. He also previously served as a technical committee member for the International Cooperative Group on Environmentally Assisted Cracking (ICG-EAC), and Environmental Degradation of Materials in Nuclear Power Systems – Water Reactors. He’s also a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), a member of IOM3’s Surface Technologies Group and Chair of the Corrosion Subgroup.

Robert Akid

Emeritus Professor, Department of Materials, University of Manchester

Bob Akid is Emeritus Professor at the University of Manchester. Bob is a past BP/Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Corrosion & Materials and a Fellow and past Chairman of the Corrosion Committee of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3). His principal research activities include the evaluation of localised corrosion in metals/alloys and its implications in the early stages of corrosion and corrosion fatigue damage in which he has over 35 years’ experience. Recently, this are of research has been applied within the oil and gas sector for carbon steels and high strength Ni alloys addressing stress assisted cracking and hydrogen embrittlement. He has worked across other disciplines including sol-gel functional coatings for anticorrosion, antibiotic and antifouling applications.

Prior to this he has worked on comparing conventional methods of assessing corrosion damage with that of the new electrochemical scanning probe (ESP) techniques and was the Co-ordinator of the EPSRC funded UK-based ESP Network, a Multi-Project Research Equipment programme to initiate University-Industry collaborative studies of localised corrosion of engineering alloys. Prof Akid is a past Royal Academy of Engineering Senior Research Fellow and Yorkshire Enterprise Fellow and has published over 150 scientific papers covering the above research areas and more recently has published and successfully patented in the area of sol-gel coatings. He is widely connected with industry and has produced over 70 industrial research reports. 

Andrew Duncan

Lead Consultant, Intertek CAPCIS

Andy Duncan is Lead Consultant with Intertek CAPCIS in Manchester. Andy is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining, and Fellow of the Institute of Corrosion. He began his career at the BP Research Centre in Sunbury in 1981 using advanced electrochemical techniques to investigate the performance and development of corrosion inhibitors and novel paint coatings, he subsequently moved into the industrial side of materials and corrosion engineering, working in over twenty countries, ranging from Alaska to Siberia, South Africa, the Far East and the Middle East, in oil & gas fields, refineries, petrochemicals and chemicals industries.After BP, and a short period in the nuclear power industry, he worked as Plant Metallurgist at Associated Octel, then joined the Health & Safety Executive’s Offshore Division as Specialist Inspector, and is currently in his second spell with CAPCIS in Manchester.

Whilst at the HSE he led the External Corrosion Project, and the Key Programme 4 (KP4) on the management of Ageing & Life Extension (ALE) of the UK’s offshore oil and gas production facilities.

He has had a number of articles published, and has given numerous presentations including on “Ageing & Life Extension”, and “Asset Integrity Management and the Law” where the aim is to inform of the importance of having an understanding of the relationship between UK’s health and safety Regulations and engineering.

Chris Evans

Consultant, Corrosion & Coatings, BAE Systems Submarines

Chris leads the Corrosion & Coatings Team within the Materials Technology Centre at the BAE Systems Submarines Barrow-in-Furness Shipyard. He is the Design Authority for Coatings, Corrosion and Metallic Materials Selection for both the Dreadnought and SSNA Submarines Programmes, and is the Technical Lead for Corrosion & Coatings related Research & Technology activities for the Submarines business unit.

He joined BAE Systems in 2016 shortly after obtaining his PhD from the University of Manchester. His research focussed on improving the understanding the pit-crack transition stage of corrosion fatigue, using digital image correlation during fatigue testing to investigate the effect of pit geometry and pit spacing on the threshold strain required for fatigue crack initiation. The project was part of the BP Facilities Technology Flagship collaboration and was supervised by Prof. Robert Akid.

Chris is a Chartered Engineer and Scientist, and is Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3). He is a qualified ICorr Level 2 Protective Coatings Inspector.

Gareth Hinds

NPL Senior Fellow & Science Area Leader, National Physical Laboratory

Gareth Hinds is Senior NPL Fellow and Science Area Leader in the Electrochemistry Group at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, United Kingdom. His primary expertise is in the development of novel in situ diagnostic techniques and standard test methods for assessment of corrosion and material degradation in energy applications. Gareth is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and holds visiting professorships at UCL, the University of Strathclyde and Harbin Institute of Technology. He is the author of over 200 publications and is currently President of the European Federation of Corrosion.

Michael Lowden

Assistant Chief Engineer - Research & Technology , Rolls-Royce

Michael is the Research & Technology Lead at Rolls-Royce Submarines, providing technical leadership and governance across a diverse Research & Technology portfolio and managing key relationships with customers, external stakeholders and academic partners.  Michael is responsible for the development of Rolls-Royce Submarines technology strategy and associated roadmaps, driving the delivery of key technologies that support the Submarines Enterprise.

Prior to joining the Rolls-Royce Submarines technology team, Michael spent ~10 years delivering research and engineering solutions within the Rolls-Royce - Materials, Chemistry and Corrosion department, specialising in the area of Corrosion Management and Environmentally Assisted Cracking (EAC).  

Chris Newton

Chris Newton has over 40 years of industrial experience in materials technology development and process improvement using advanced metals and materials leading R&D, forensic problem solving and corrosion and joining of metals.  Now retired previous roles include executive roles at Firth Rixson and Bridon International, Infrastructure Business Manager at Intertek-CAPCIS, Senior Change Agent at Tarmac Building Products, Technical Director of the Metal Division at Firth Rixson and 18 years leading technology and materials development teams for Alcan International.  Achievements include leading the opening of the BBtec Technology Centre for BBRG as Group Technical Director and weld-bonding of automotive aluminium alloys for Alcan.  A member of the Society of Automotive Engineers and Minerals Society in the USA, in 1997 he was winner of the AF Davis Medal from the American Welding Society.  Chris’s corrosion expertise includes, high-strength lightweight aerospace alloy development, corrosion resistant stainless alloys failure analysis, advanced in-situ visual and electrochemical monitoring techniques, and high temperature aqueous corrosion in Bayer process plant.   Chris has a BSc degree in Metallurgy from Brunel University and a DPhil in "Corrosion of Steel in Concrete Coatings for Submarine Pipelines" from Oxford University,  Chris is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of IOM3.

Roberto Morana

Senior Corrosion and Materials Engineer

Roberto is a Senior Corrosion and Materials Engineer with more than 20 years' experience in corrosion, materials, and welding across a wide range of the energy sector. He is an expert in the areas of environmentally assisted degradation, material selection and structural integrity, in the Oil and Gas industry, associated with the safe operation of onshore, offshore, and subsea structures. He has been recognized as an expert in his field by internal and external peers and have shown a commitment to his discipline through leadership in professional organizations and standards development.

Roberto gained his first degree in chemical engineering from the University of Palermo (Italy) with a specialization in electrochemistry. He then completed a Ph.D. at Loughborough University (UK) in surface engineering. After a decade working for the RINA-CSM research centre in Italy, leading a team to address materials and corrosion issues for clients in the Energy sector, he joined bp in 2013 as a Senior Materials and Corrosion Engineer. Today he is the bp Materials and Corrosion discipline lead for the NEP CCUS project, in the Northeast of England.

Roberto is a Chartered Engineer as a TWI member, Fellow of IOM3, Fellow of ICorr and a long-term member of AMPP.

Emilio Martinez-Paneda

Associate Professor, University of Oxford

Prior to joining Oxford Emilio was a Reader (Associate Professor) at Imperial College London, where he led an interdisciplinary research group from 2019 to 2023 (2019: Lecturer, 2021: Senior Lecturer, 2023: Reader). Before that, he was an 1851 Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Prof Emilio Martinez-Paneda’s research spans a wide range of challenges lying at the interface between mechanics and other disciplines such as biology, geology, chemistry and materials science, being particularly known for his pioneering contributions to the area of hydrogen embrittlement and environmentally assisted cracking. Prof Emilio Martinez-Paneda has been the PI on over 4.5M GBP of funding in the past five years (ERC Starting Grant, UKRI) and his work has been recognized through multiple awards, including the 2021 UK Young Engineer of the Year (Royal Academy of Engineering), the 2022 Imperial College President’s Medal for Excellence in Research, and the 2021 Gustavo Colonnetti Medal (RILEM). Since December 2023, he has been the Editor of the Corrosion Section of Elsevier’s journal Materials Today Communications.

Chris Williams

Senior Advisor, Corrosion Engineering, bp, Sunbury-upon-Thames

Chris is currently Senior Advisor for Corrosion Engineering at bp, a senior technical leadership role within central engineering role that supports production and refining operations, major projects, and new, low-carbon businesses. Chris started his career in research, studying corrosion and materials engineering for the coal-fired power generation industry in the UK and in Germany but has since gained over 27 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry. He started his oil and gas career as a Corrosion Engineer in Aberdeen and joined bp in 2006. He has held numerous engineering, management, and technical leadership roles in the areas of corrosion and integrity management such as discipline lead for upstream corrosion and materials engineering, integrity manager and upstream engineering technical authority for corrosion.

Chris obtained his PhD at The University of Manchester (UMIST) in 1995 through studying high-temperature corrosion of structural materials in a simulated coal-gasification atmosphere under isothermal and thermal cycling conditions for the power generation industry, part of a Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) funded programme in conjunction with British Coal.

He’s a member of the Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP) Asset Owners Advisory Council, a member of the External Advisory Board to the University of Manchester Department of Materials, Quality Lead for the Institute of Corrosion (ICorr) and a mentor to the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Graduate Engineering Engagement Program (GEEP) which supports UK engineering students and recent graduates from under-represented backgrounds into engineering employment. He’s a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), and a member of the leadership teams of IOM3’s Surface Technologies Group and of the Corrosion Subgroup. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Corrosion (ICorr).

Julian Wharton

National Centre for Advanced Tribology at Southampton (nCATS), Mechanical Engineering, University of Southampton

Is a Professor in Corrosion and Surface Engineering in nCATS.  His research focus is the fundamental understanding of surface degradation of metallic materials, and interfaces in and between engineering materials and their environments.  The work has pioneered understanding of interfaces under a combination of mechanical and environmental loading, where surface degradation remains a critical challenge; modelling the influence of corrosion on ultimate strength; marine corrosion / microbiological influenced corrosion, wear-corrosion interactions and modelling.  A list of publications can be found at: Professor Julian Wharton | University of Southampton

Julian obtained his PhD at the University of Loughborough in 1997, where he studied conversion coatings for zinc-nickel electrodeposits.  He is also the chair of the Institute of Corrosion’s Corrosion Science Division (CSD).

Shiladitya Paul

Director & Associate Professor, Materials Innovation Centre, University of Leicester

Shiladitya joined TWI in 2008 after graduating with a PhD in Materials Science from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar. In 2018, he was appointed the Director of the Materials Innovation Centre, a collaborative initiative between TWI and the University of Leicester.  He has been actively involved in collaborative research projects across Europe and the UK with a total value of over £20 million. His research has led to over 100 publications in materials, coatings and corrosion. He is also active in the research community and has edited several special issues for many journals, including the recent npj Materials Degradation collection on Marine Corrosion. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM³). He serves as the Vice-Chair of the European Federation of Corrosion (EFC) Working Party 9 (Marine Corrosion), and is the Chair of AMPP 2025 symposium on Thermal and Cold Spray Coatings. As a long-standing member of the Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP), he actively contributes to several AMPP committees.

Shravan Kairy

Higher Scientist, Electrochemistry Group, NPL

Dr. Shravan Kairy is a materials scientist specialising in corrosion science and microstructural characterisation. His core research interest is understanding the relationships between materials' composition, processing, microstructure and corrosion behaviour to design durable materials. Currently, as a Higher Scientist in the Electrochemistry Group at the National Physical Laboratory, UK, he leads the National Measurement System CCUS corrosion project to establish a standard test method and is a Measurement Service Provider for Corrosion Testing. He earned his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Monash University, Australia, where his research on 6xxx series aluminium alloy microstructure, microchemistry and corrosion received the Vice-Chancellor's Commendation for Best PhD Thesis in Engineering. He has published 29 journal papers with an h-index of 22 and citations over 1500, and his contributions to Al-alloy corrosion have been recognised with prestigious awards, including the A.B. Campbell Award and Marcel Pourbaix prize (AMPP, USA) and the Early Career Researcher Award (ICAA-17, France). He is a member of AMPP, IOM3, ICorr and IIM, a reviewer for leading corrosion and material science journals, and has delivered talks on corrosion at reputed conferences.

Pat Liddicott

Materials Science & NDE Centre of Expertise Lead & Team Manager, Sellafield Ltd

Chris Pickford

Sellafield Ltd