Professor Herman Terryn is an internationally recognized expert in surface engineering and corrosion science. He serves as Full Professor at the Department of Materials and Chemistry at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), and holds part-time appointments at TU Delft and ULB.

His research was conducted in the Department Materials and Chemistry - MACH - (6 professors, 4 part-time professors, 12 Postdocs, 35 PhDs, 12 technicians), which has two research groups: FYSC (polymer science) and SURF (Electrochemical and Surface Engineering) in the Faculty of Engineering at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He was the head of the department for six years ending 2021. His research on corrosion is carried out within SURF. He’s also a part-time professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, within the research group Corrosion Technology and Electrochemistry (In 2011, he was granted the long-term Methusalem project (2011-2023, 7,5 M Euro) 'Design and Prediction of Nanostructured Metal Surfaces' (NANOMET). where he works on 5 cross-linked areas in local electrochemistry, electrochemical engineering, modelling, functional surface engineering and surface characterization, each supported by different SURF staff members, postdocs and PhDs. SURF is in the unique position of having state of the art technology for all these research tools in-house. Methusalem is the most prestigious grant awarded by the Flemish government for top researchers.    Within the frame of Methusalem grant, he has been a PI of several strategic research projects (SBO) on self-healing coatings, corrosion of concrete and corrosion prediction. His research approach in predicting batteries and corrosion is recognized by IOF funding at the VUB. He was involved in a high number of EU ITN network & HorizonEU and national projects.

During the last decade, he worked within different collaborations with universities and research institutes all over the world, leading to joint papers on corrosion research. The main collaborations are with MPIE-Dusseldorf (GE), Corrosion and Protection Center Manchester (UK), Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris (FR), Université de Bourgogne Dijon (FR), TU Eindhoven (NL), TUDelft (NL), IST Lisbon (PT), University of Aveiro (PT), DUT Copenhagen (DK), KTH Stockholm (SE), NTU Trondheim (N), Hokkaido and Keio University (JP), Hanoi University (VN), CSIRO Melbourne, Daikin University (AU) and Universidade de São Paulo (BR) Corrosion projects funded by main industrial partners: OCAS - ArcelorMittal (BE), Tata Steel (NL), AkzoNobel (NL), Toyota (JP), Henkel (GE), Bekaert (BE), Hydro (GE), Aleris (BE), E-max (BE), Fokker (NL), NXP (NL), Agfa (BE), EADS, Airbus (GE), Constellium (FR), Aperam (FR), Assan Aluminium (TU) PPG (USA)

He obtained several important corrosion awards:

• 2019   Fellow Chinese Society for Corrosion and Protection (CSCP)
• 2017   H. H. Uhlig Corrosion Award, Corrosion Division Electrochemical Society,
• 2017   Honorary Professor University Science and Technology, Beijing (China)
• 2016   Francqui chair UAntwerpen, Most Prestigious Chair awarded by another University in BE
• 2014   Medal of European Federation of Corrosion, EUROCORR, Pisa (Italy), Most prestigious European award for Corrosion Science in Europe
• 2012   Alusil award, Saint-Petersburg (Russia): prize for Al Surface Science and Technology

In total, he published 605 papers in scopus, h-factor 74 with total 18819 citations and 66 PhDs have graduated under his supervision. 

Researcher unique identifier: orcid.org/0000-0003-2639-5496, Res ID: A-2255-2013, Scopus ID: 7006470634.