Samantha M. Gateman
Dr. Samantha Michelle Gateman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Western University, London, Ontario, and the Chair in Radiation Induced Chemistry, a position funded by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). Her passion for electrochemistry sparked during an undergraduate research project with Prof. Janine Mauzeroll at McGill University, where she later pursued her PhD, investigating multiscale electrochemical methods to understand the corrosion behavior of ferrous coatings in hydraulic turbine systems.
Following her doctoral studies, she was awarded an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship and joined Sorbonne University in Paris, France, where she worked with Dr. Vincent Vivier to study the local aging fluctuations of ionic exchange materials for water purification using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. In 2022, she returned to Canada to establish her independent research program at Western University.
Dr. Gateman’s research focuses on advancing multiscale electrochemical tools to investigate corrosion mechanisms, with applications spanning the nuclear, automotive, and biomedical sectors. Her work emphasizes bridging the gap between analytical chemistry, corrosion science, and industry by tailoring quantitative and spatially resolved electrochemical methods to explore corrosion initiation at the micro- and nanoscale under simulated service conditions.
Recognized as one of C&EN’s Talented Twelve in 2024, Dr. Gateman is celebrated as part of the next generation of researchers tackling global challenges. Her contributions highlight the importance of collaboration between researchers and industry to develop innovative solutions for critical materials challenges.
From Nuclear Waste to Women’s Health: How Corrosion Science Shapes Our World
What do non-hormonal intrauterine devices and nuclear waste containers have in common? Both are impacted by corrosion, an electrochemical process that affects nearly all metals and costs Canada over $60 billion each year. Despite its ubiquity and economic burden, corrosion remains a major challenge in materials science and public infrastructure.
In this talk, I will share how my research group is advancing our understanding of corrosion using multiscale electrochemical and radiochemical methods, with applications in both the nuclear and health sectors. A key focus is on localized corrosion, which accounts for roughly 75% of real-world corrosion failures but is notoriously difficult to predict and detect. Using scanning electrochemical probe microscopy, we investigate early-stage corrosion processes at the microscale, helping close the loop between materials characterization and design.
Our work includes studying copper coatings proposed for nuclear waste containment and pioneering new approaches in radioelectrochemistry to assess material performance under ionizing radiation.
Finally, I will explore how corrosion science can go beyond mitigation and be leveraged for innovation. Drawing unexpected links between nuclear infrastructure and women’s health, I will show how insights from our corrosion studies are inspiring the development of safer, non-hormonal intrauterine devices; a step toward modernizing this long-overlooked contraceptive technology.