Anne Neville was a mechanical engineer with a specific interest in corrosion, tribology and processes that occur at engineering interfaces. She graduated from University of Glasgow (BEng, 1st Class Hons) in 1992 and received her PhD in corrosion science/engineering in 1995 from the same department. She conducted an experimental study of corrosion and tribocorrosion processes on high alloy stainless steels and Ni-alloys and her work led to an increased understanding between the synergies that exist between corrosion and wear processes.
She was appointed as lecturer at Heriot-Watt University immediately after PhD and started to build a research team. This team grew to 25 researchers in the following years and in 1999 she was promoted to Reader and then Professor in 2002. Anne and her group moved to Leeds in 2003 where she was Director of the newly formed Institute of Functional Surfaces (iFS) which comprises 70 researchers. The institute has a funding portfolio that spans many agencies and industrial sectors including medical, oil and gas & automotive.
She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2005 and FREng 2010. She was awarded the Donald Julius Groen Prize for Tribology in 2012, the 2014 STLE Wilbert Shultz Prize, Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2013 and was selected as an EPSRC RISE Fellow in 2014. She was the first woman to be awarded the James Clayton Prize and Royal Society Leverhulme medal in 2016. In the New Year's Honours in 2017 she was awarded OBE.
Professor Anne Neville OBE FREng FRS died on 2 July 2022.
Awards
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Leverhulme Medal
For revealing diverse physical and chemical processes at interacting interfaces, emphasising significant synergy between tribology and corrosion.
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Clifford Paterson Medal and Lecture
For her innovative research into corrosion and tribology and the successful application of this to wide-ranging, real life, engineering problems.
