Passing of Professor-in-Residence Digby Macdonald

Photo credit: UC Berkeley NE Department

We are deeply saddened by the passing on June 12, 2025 of Professor Digby Macdonald. Digby was appointed Professor of Residence in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Nuclear Engineering at University of California, Berkeley in 2012. His appointment at Berkeley was preceded by a Professorship in MSE at the Ohio State University and a Distinguished Professorship in MSE at Pennsylvania State University (PSU). In addition to his academic career Digby held a number of technical management positions including Director of the Center for Advanced Materials and Director of the Center for Electrochemical Science and Technology, as well as Chair of the Metals Program at PSU. From 1984 to 1991 he held consecutive appointments as Laboratory Director of the Chemistry Laboratory and of the Materials Research Laboratory, and Deputy Director of the Physical Sciences Division at SRI International, where he also served as Vice President for two years.

Professor Macdonald was a prolific and productive researcher who consistently made insightful and innovative contributions on a range of topics related to the electrochemical behavior of metals, ceramics and polymers, especially as regard their use in the generation, transport and storage of energy. Digby was unique in his ability to conduct high quality, insightful experiments and to develop predictive models based on fundamental principles. He was equally at home as an experimentalist and as a theoretician.

Professor Macdonald’s research has had an enormous impact on our understanding of the passive films responsible for the behavior of corrosion resistant metals and alloys. Versions of his Point Defect Model have been widely used in the nuclear power industry and has been applied to predict the long-term performance of critical structural materials including stainless steels and Nickel-Chromium base alloys in commercial nuclear reactors.

Professor Macdonald’s research in corrosion, the development of reference electrodes, which are essential for electrochemical studies, and his investigations of the fundamental aspects of electrochemical reactions taking place at various battery electrodes were furthered by his employment of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Digby developed innovative kinetic models to interpret the impedance spectra and pioneered the use of Kramers-Kronig Transforms to establish the validity of measured electrochemical impedance spectra. Of his many hundreds of publications, the ones he most enjoyed preparing were those he co-authored with his wife, Professor Mirna Uquidi-Macdonald.

The value of Professor Macdonald’s research has been widely recognized. Suffice it to say, he has been awarded every prestigious international prize that is available to corrosion scientists.

Digby mentored a large number of PhD students and Post-Docs and his opinions on a wide-range of electrochemical issues were always generously provided and greatly valued by his fellow researchers. While at SRI International, which is located in Menlo Park, and at Berkeley, Digby was always eager to take students and colleagues sailing on the Bay. He attributed his love of sailing to his New Zealand heritage of which he was very proud. Digby will be greatly missed.