A conversation with Serena Corr

On July 19, 1545, King Henry VIII of England watched in dismay as one of his greatest warships, the Mary Rose, sank during the Battle of the Solent in the strait between Britain’s south coast and the Isle of Wight, taking the lives of hundreds of sailors with it. The English fleet eventually won its battle against the French, but the Mary Rose remained on the seabed for centuries. Then, in 1982, the oak vessel was raised in a spectacular feat of underwater archeology. The ship and its artifacts are now kept at the Mary Rose museum in Portsmouth, England, but conservators now face a battle of their own—preserving the ship’s oak timbers from decay. At the American Chemical Society national meeting in August, Serena Corr of the University of Sheffield explained how she is using nanotechnology to help save the Mary Rose. Mark Peplow caught up with Corr to get the latest on the project.