Dr. Sigrún Nanna Karlsdóttir is a Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Iceland and leader of the Materials and Corrosion Research Center at University of Iceland
Her research interest is in the field of structural materials; materials for energy, specifically geothermal energy; and corrosion and oxidation of materials. The focus of her research has been on the performance of materials in extreme environments, such as corrosion of metals in high temperature geothermal environment, including superheated geothermal steam. Dr. Karlsdóttir was the leading scientist and organizer of the material testing on-site at IDDP-1, the first well in the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) and the hottest discharging geothermal well in the world (450°C).
Prof. Karlsdottir is a co-founder and owner of Gerosion Ltd., an engineering consulting and R&D Company, where she has served as a COB since 2014. Prof. Karlsdottir is active in research on scaling and corrosion in geothermal environment, including material testing in extreme conditions such as in superheated geothermal steam in-situ and in a simulated environment. Her involvement in projects in national and international collaboration includes corrosion studies of cladding materials and coatings in high-temperature geothermal environment and research on corrosion behavior if corrosion resistant alloys in simulated high temperature deep geothermal environment.
She has published over 40 papers in these fields, received research grants from the energy sector, and consulted Icelandic energy companies in matters related to corrosion and material selection in geothermal environments. She served as a board member on the Geothermal Association of Iceland from 2018-2022 and as a session chair and co-chair several times (2017, 2018, 2022) for the symposium Geothermal Scaling and Corrosion at the annual conference CORROSION.
