R. Kerry Rowe

Ronald Kerry Rowe (born 13 September 1951) is a Canadian civil engineer of Australian birth, one of the pioneers of geosynthetics.

Education

Rowe was educated at Fort Street High School, Sydney (1964-1969) and the University of Sydney, where he was awarded a BSc (Computer Science) in 1973, BE (First Hons, Civil Engineering) and the University Medal in 1975, a PhD in 1979 and D.Eng in 1993.

Career and research Rowe worked as a geotechnical engineer with the Australian Government Department of Construction prior to emigrating to Canada in 1978, where he spent 22 years as a professor, including 8 years as Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

From 2000 to 2010, he served as Vice-Principal (Research) at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario where he was responsible for the administration of all research (in Business, Education, Humanities, Law, Social Sciences, Physical and Biological Sciences, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Health Sciences and Medicine). He is presently (2023) a Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering in the Department of Civil Engineering at Queen's.

His research has covered contaminant migration through soil and rock, landfill design, containment of contaminated sites, geosynthetics (including geotextiles, geomembranes, geogrids, geonets etc.), tailings storage facilities and dams, reinforced embankments and walls, tunnels in soft ground and the failure of slopes and excavations. In particular he has researched the effectiveness of plastic (geomembrane) liners and geosynthetic clay liners (a composite material incorporating clay) that limit contamination from mining operations and waste disposal facilities.

He is a past President of the International Geosynthetics Society, the Canadian Geotechnical Society and the Engineering Institute of Canada.

In 2012, the ISSMGE and Technical Committee 215 created the "R. Kerry Rowe Lecture" to honor Prof. Rowe's contributions to Environmental Geotechnics and his academic accomplishments. This distinguished lecture is delivered during the opening plenary session of the International Congress on Environmental Geotechnics (ICEG) and the International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ICSMGE).

Publications Google Scholar - Kerry Rowe

Honours and awards 2001: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada 2004: Killam Prize, awarded by the Canada Council 2005: Rankine Lecture to the British Geotechnical Association 2010: International Fellow, UK Royal Academy of Engineering 2012: Sir John Kennedy Medal of the Engineering Institute of Canada 2013: Fellow of the Royal Society of London, UK 2014: Thomas Telford Gold Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers 2015: Miroslaw Romanowski Medal of the Royal Society of Canada 2016: Member of the National Academy of Engineering 2018: Officer of the Order of Canada 2018: International Geosynthetics Society Award and Gold Medal 2020: Elected Distinguished Member American Society of Civil Engineers 2022: Inaugural winner of the NSERC Donna Strickland Prize for Societal Impact of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research