The US physical chemist Professor Norman Hackerman was an internationally recognised expert in the corrosion of metals. He was best known for his research into the electrochemistry of oxidation, in particular, and for his contributions to electrochemistry, in general. He was also a first-rate teacher and a very effective university administrator.

His work led to the development of a number of processes that retard or prevent corrosion, which proved invaluable to the metals industry.

His interest in corrosion began in 1943 when he worked on the Manhattan Project, the US programme to develop the atomic bomb.

Norman Hackerman was born in 1912, in Baltimore, Maryland. Encouraged by his immigrant parents to get the formal education they did not receive, he studied chemistry at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1932 and his PhD in 1935.

Leaving university during the Great Depression, he was unable to find full-time work and so took on three jobs simultaneously, teaching at Johns Hopkins and in the physical chemistry department at Loyola College, Maryland, and working as a research chemist for the Colloid Corporation developing equipment to homogenise milk.

In 1941, after a stint as an assistant chemist with the US Coast Guard in New York, he was appointed assistant professor of chemistry at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. When the US entered the Second World War he enlisted in the Navy and was assigned to the Manhattan Project. In 1945 he joined the University of Texas at Austin as an assistant professor of chemistry.

Hackerman remained at the University of Texas for 25 years. Between 1952 and 1962, he was chairman of the department of chemistry; in 1961 and 1962, he was director of the corrosion research laboratory and dean of research and sponsored programs; in 1962, he served as vice-president and provost; between 1963 and 1967, he was the vice-chancellor of academic affairs: and from 1967 to 1970 he was the university president.

In 1970 he left the University of Texas for Rice University, Houston, as a professor of chemistry and president of the university, holding both posts until he retired in 1985.

During his 15 years at Rice he greatly strengthened the faculty of chemistry (for example, he increased the number of endowed professorships from 21 to 60), improved the campus facilities, cleared the university’s deficit and nearly quadrupled its endowment.

When he retired he was given the title of Professor of Chemistry Emeritus at the University of Texas and was still teaching chemistry there until shortly before his death.

Hackerman was an enthusiastic and excellent teacher. Many of his students earned international recognition.

In addition to teaching, and despite his heavy administrative duties, he actively continued his own research. For many years, he was the chairman of the scientific advisory board of the Robert A. Welch Foundation, one of America’s oldest and largest sources of private funding for basic research in chemistry.

Hackerman wrote more than 200 scientific articles and received numerous awards and honours. He was elected a Member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was given the Vannevar Bush Award of the US National Science Board. He received the Whitney Award from the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (1956), the Palladium Medal from the Electrochemical Society (1965), the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Chemists (1978), the Charles Lathrop Parsons Award from the American Chemists Society (1987), and the American National Medal of Science (1993).

Hackerman’s wife predeceased him in 2002 and he is survived by their three daughters and son.

Professor Norman Hackerman, chemist and university administrator, was born on March 2, 1912. He died on June 16, 2007, aged 95