Mary Ryan

Mary Patricia Ryan is a Professor of Materials Science at Imperial College London and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Education Ryan completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Manchester. Her PhD was on using "in-situ ECSTM to study the formation of ultra-thin surface oxides on base metals", and she managed to show for the first time that these surface oxides have crystalline phases. She spent three years at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, where she developed in situ electrochemical systems using synchrotron radiation-based techniques. Career and research Ryan is an expert in electrochemistry and interfacial material science. Ryan joined Imperial College London as a lecturer in 1998. Her research group explore the mechanism of corrosion, new protective materials and materials with thermal management capabilities. She studies the process of electrochemical deposition, the stabilities of metals and the formation processes of metal and oxide nanostructures. She pioneered the use of synchrotron X-rays to study reactive electrochemical systems, including the stability of nanostructures. In 2002, she published the seminal paper "Why stainless steel corrodes" in Nature.