Vale Professor Digby Macdonald
We are 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 Centre for Advanced Materials and Director of the Centre 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 behaviour 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. 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 recognised. 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 (he was born in NZ) of which he was very proud. Digby studied under Assoc-Prof Graham Wright at Auckland University. Graham Wright was a founding member of the ACA NZ Branch. Digby also attended several ACA Conferences over the years and he was a Plenary Lecturer at the ACA Conference held in Auckland in 2016.