Professor Philippe Refait is the Head of the Department of Physics at the Faculty of Science and Technology, La Rochelle University. He is specialized in electrochemistry, materials science and surface science. His main research axes are about corrosion mechanisms (mainly of carbon steel and low alloy steel) including biocorrosion, and cathodic protection (more specifically the processes occurring under cathodic polarization). He is currently the chair of the “Marine Corrosion” working party of the European Federation of Corrosion (EFC).
Dr Shiladitya Paul is the Director of Materials Innovation Centre, University of Leicester, UK. He is also the Materials R&D Manager at TWI. He has a PhD in Materials Science and Metallurgy from the University of Cambridge, a CEng from the Engineering council UK, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, UK. He has published more than 100 technical articles in the fields of materials, coatings, and corrosion over the past 20 years. He is the Vice-Chair of the European Federation of Corrosion (EFC) WP9 (Marine Corrosion), and the Chair of AMPP Annual Conference 2023 symposium on Thermal and Cold Spray Coatings. He regularly reviews papers (for several journals) and grant proposals. He is also a member of the Journal of Thermal Spray Technology Best Paper Award Committee.