Research Physical Scientist at NETL, Functional Materials Team
Dr. Ruishu F. Wright is a Research Physical Scientist on the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s Functional Materials Team. She serves as Technical Portfolio Lead for Natural Gas Infrastructure FWP and Principal Investigator for multiple projects and coordinates R&D efforts of an interdisciplinary team to develop real-time sensors and functional sensitive materials to monitor and mitigate corrosion and gas leaks of natural gas pipelines, enable subsurface geochemical monitoring in support of subsurface hydrogen-natural gas storage, wellbore integrity monitoring of carbon storage wells, and plugging abandoned wells.
Dr. Wright’s expertise lies in advanced sensors development for structural health monitoring and environmental detection for energy infrastructure using distributed and nondestructive sensor technologies to ensure safe, reliable and resilient infrastructure for, among other things, natural gas and hydrogen transportation, subsurface wellbores, CO2 storage systems, and plugged abandoned wells. She has extensive experience in design and development of functional materials (e.g. metallic thin films, metal oxides, nanomaterials) to enable various sensor platforms. She also has strong expertise in corrosion and materials degradation in natural gas pipelines and in deep wells with extreme conditions, such as high-temperature, high-pressure (HTHP) environments.
Dr. Wright holds a Ph.D. in Energy and Mineral Engineering and Electrochemical Science and Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. She earned her M.S. in Chemical Engineering and Technology and B.S. in Metallurgical Science and Engineering. She has published more than 40 technical articles and given more than 30 presentations at conferences, and holds five pending and awarded U.S. patents on sensor technologies.
