Dev Chidambaram, an Indian American Chemical & Materials Engineering Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, has won Electrochemical Society’s (ECS) 2025 Rusty Award for Mid-Career Excellence in Corrosion.
Chidambaram will receive the award and present some of his research at the October meeting of ECS, the oldest professional organization devoted to electrochemistry founded in 1902, in Chicago, Illinois, according to a university release.
“It’s not very glamorous,” Chidambaram said, about his area of expertise. But, he noted, as long as humanity uses metals like steel and aluminum— crucial for things like bridges, aircraft and power plants — we’ll be solving corrosion problems. Chidambaram and his team use electrochemistry and spectroscopy to better understand and reduce corrosion of materials.
“Professor Dev Chidambaram is a leader in the field,” Chemical & Materials Engineering Department Chair Victor Vasquez said. He cited Chidambaram’s development of a coating to protect metal from corrosion that is safer than hexavalent chromium systems, widely used since World War II but also carcinogenic, along with his recent research work funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Vasquez also referenced Chidambaram’s development of two formulations to prevent corrosion and scaling in geothermal wells, both currently used by Ormat Technologies, a geothermal and renewable energy company.
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For Chidambaram, the award recognizes the singular type of research done in his Materials and Electrochemical Research (MER) Laboratory in the Laxalt Mineral Research Building.
“To me, (the award) is validation of the work we do in our lab, and the work the students and our team members do,” he said. “They are the electrons of the electrochemistry lab.”
Chidambaram started the MER Lab after joining the University of Nevada, Reno in 2009. He and about 10 researchers study various types of electron transfer processes — that includes work on materials that resist corrosion in harsh environments, like nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel cycles and high temperature solar.
Chidambaram and team also work on fuel cells, aerospace materials, improving battery systems and developing new catalytic electrodes. Since he joined the University, Chidambaram has been the principal investigator on projects totaling nearly $20 million. His work has resulted in nearly 275 publications and presentations and five issued U.S. patents.
“We excel in correlating the electrochemical behavior to surface chemistry,” Chidambaram said. Specifically, we design and develop in situ methods to understand these mechanisms. Our students are some of the best in this niche topic. That is why our students are really sought after.”
The lab’s recent and current projects include a partnership with Idaho National Lab and Pennsylvania State University to make materials to be used in a specific part of a process that would remove uranium from used nuclear fuel, making it usable for next-generation nuclear reactors.
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Another project, with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and University of Houston, and funded by the DOE, involves extracting iron from its ore through an electrochemical process that would make extraction of iron from less prominent ores, like those found in the U.S., more viable.
Chidambaram’s focus on electrochemistry came early: he earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical and electrochemical engineering at the Central Electrochemical Research Institute in India. He got into spectroscopy while earning his graduate degrees at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Chidambaram holds two master’s degrees — in materials science and engineering and in biomedical engineering — as well as a PhD in materials science and engineering.
After graduating from Stony Brook with a 2004 President’s Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation award, Chidambaram received the Goldhaber Distinguished Fellowship to work at Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, where he was promoted to staff associate materials scientist.
As an early career scientist, his work was recognized with awards from the Electrochemical Society, the International Society for Electrochemistry, Society for Applied Spectroscopy and the American Vacuum Society.
After joining Nevada University, Chidambaram developed the Nuclear Materials emphasis, and more recently, the Batteries and Energy Storage Technologies Minor program, in which students make and test their own lithium-ion batteries. Chidambaram is the recipient of the 2023 Nevada Regents Mid-Career Researcher Award, among other recognitions.