Carolyn Hansson

Carolyn M. Hansson CM FRSC (nee Russell; March 15, 1941) is a Canadian materials engineer. She was the first female student to attend the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College, London, and the first woman to graduate with a PhD in metallurgy from there. Hansson was honoured for pioneering a monitoring system for evaluating the integrity of concrete structures.

Hansson was born on March 15, 1941, in Hazel Grove, Cheshire, England.^[1] Growing up, she attended an all-girls school in England and applied for metallurgy at Imperial College.^[2] Upon being accepted, she was the first female student to attend the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College, London, and the first woman to graduate with a PhD in metallurgy from there.^[1] She was also only one of two women in the United Kingdom with a PhD in metallurgy.^[3]

In 1976, Hansson joined AT&T Bell Labs where she stayed four years before spending the following nine as a research scientist, and eventually as head of the Research Department, at the Danish Corrosion Centre.^[4] When her husband was extended a position in Maryland, Hansson accepted an appointment within the Martin Marietta’s Institute for Advanced Studies.^[2] She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1977 for research on physical metallurgy.^[5][6] doing these studies at the University of Cambridge.^[7] She was awarded the 1980 Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award.^[8]

In 1990, she became a professor and head of the Materials and Metallurgical Engineering Department at Queen's University and then joined the University of Waterloo in 1996 as Vice President of University Research.^[4] The following year, she was elected a Fellow of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society.^[9] Hansson was eventually replaced as VP by Paul Guild in 2001 after a five year term.^[10]

Hansson's research focus is on the corrosion of steel inside concrete. She has identified techniques for measuring the amount of corrosion and also studies rust-resistant reinforcing materials.^[11] Hansson has worked as a consultant to the Ministry of Transportation Ontario and Alberta Transportation in corrosion monitoring of bridge structures.^[12] In 2005, Hansson resigned from Hydrogenics Corporation upon their acquisition of Stuart Energy.^[13] A few years later, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for her contributions in the basic science of corrosion and metallurgical processes and applied engineering.^[14] Hansson also received the 2009 Acta Materialia, Inc. Materials & Society Award.^[4]

In 2014, she was appointed Executive Secretary and Cooperating Society Governor of Acta Materialia Inc.^[15] The next year, Hansson was appointed a member of the Order of Canada for "pioneering a monitoring system for evaluating the integrity of concrete structures."^[16] She has also been appointed a Fellow of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences, the UK Institution of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and the American Concrete Institute.^[15] Two years later, she joined the Board of Directors at Electrovaya Inc.^[17] During the year, she was appointed head of Electrovaya's Disclosure Committee after it was fined $250 thousand by the Ontario Securities Commission.^[18]

As of 1980, she lived in Murray Hill, New Jersey.^[7]

• Carolyn Hansson publications indexed by Google Scholar