Willis Rodney Whitney (August 22, 1868 - January 9, 1958) was an American chemist. He specialized in electrochemistry and developing an electrochemical theory of corrosion. Since 1900, Whitney had been working part-time as an advisor at the newly founded research lab of General Electric. He eventually moved away from the MIT and into a full job at the GE labs. In 1915, he had about 250 staff members, Irving Langmuir and William David Coolidge among them. They worked on vacuum- and gas-filled lamps, the wireless telegraph, and X-ray technology. He died in 1958 at the age of 89.