Photo courtesy of: Russ College of EngineeringDr. Srdjan Nesic works with one of his students. Nesic received the 2018 Willis Rodney Whitney Award for his contributions to corrosion science and education.
Ohio University Russ Professor Srdjan Nesic, who is also the director of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology’s Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technology (ICMT), has received the prestigious 2018 Willis Rodney Whitney Award for his contributions to corrosion science and education.
Granted by the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE), the award honors significant contributions to research and/or the prevention of corrosion.
"The Whitney Award recognizes Professor Nesic as an exemplar of excellence in engineering research – research that advances fundamental scientific understanding and also provides practical solutions to current and future challenges," said Valerie Young, associate professor and department chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Corrosion science is concerned with the gradual decay of materials through slow chemical processes. According to Nesic, his work in particular is concerned with understanding and predicting corrosion in the oil and gas industry, for which he has clarified the impacts of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide on the corrosion of pipeline steel. These acid gases, in combination with water that is present in the produced hydrocarbon fluids, can internally corrode the transport pipelines, leading to leakage and ultimately, environmental disasters and potential loss of life, he explained.
“This is the highest honor I think anyone working with the very broad field of corrosion can ever get,” Nesic said. “What I think I have contributed over the years is to clarify the main effects of corrosion, to bring out the commonly accepted and reasonably well understood concepts and do away with the rest.”
Srdjan collaborates with faculty, staff, and colleagues at the Russ College’s Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technology, of which he has been director since 2002. He is responsible for obtaining more than $35 million in external research funding, almost all from private industry.
A fellow of NACE and associate editor of the CORROSION journal and Elsevier’s Corrosion Science Journal, he is also the author of articles in respected corrosion references Uhlig's Corrosion Handbook and Shriers's Corrosion.
He has also authored 18 articles in books, 123 peer-reviewed journal papers, 225 conference papers, and more than 50 scientific reports in the field of corrosion. In addition, he has served as principal adviser for more than 50 master’s and doctoral students, many of whom have moved on to become leaders in the oil and gas industry.
Aria Kahyarian, a chemical engineering Ph.D. candidate, said he is grateful for Nesic’s mentorship.
“Dr. Nesic is a dedicated, kind, patient, yet charismatic teacher with a deep knowledge and a unique, student-oriented teaching philosophy, which I found very constructive especially at the graduate level,” Kahyarian said. “He not only prepared me for my future career, but also taught me to be a better person, and I am forever grateful for that.”
Nesic has received numerous awards and honors including CORROSION journal’s best paper in 2010 and 2015, NACE’s H.H. Uhlig Award in 2007, and the British Corrosion Journal’s Bengough award in 1998. He also has extensively consulted on corrosion issues for the oil and gas industry.