Raghu Srinivasan operates an atmospheric corrosion test site at a working rocket-launch facility on Kodiak Island, and that is not even the most unusual stop on his journey to Alaska. He grew up in Tamil Nadu, India, studied chemical and electrochemical engineering at the National Lab, Central Electrochemical Research Institute. He moved to Hawaii for graduate school before telling his wife they were relocating “from the fiftieth state to the forty-ninth” - perhaps forgetting to mention that a tenure-track job meant Last Frontier might just become their last move. Since arriving, he has established the Environmental Degradation Lab, led a middle-school corrosion camp for five years, studied deicing brines containing up to approximately 23% salt, and been selected for the University of Alaska’s second cohort of President’s Arctic Professors.

Shelly Thomas sits down with the UAA mechanical engineering chair for a conversation about atmospheric corrosion in the Arctic, collaboration, curiosity, and the unexpected journey from India to Hawaii to Alaska.