Queen’s professor Dr. Kerry Rowe has been elected to the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE). NAE, a private non-profit organization in the United States, elects new members who are distinguished in their research achievements.

Only 20 engineers of NAE’s 2,200 elected members are Canadian, and Rowe is one of only two civil engineers listed as foreign members. Rowe served as the vice principal (research) at Queen’s from 2000 to 2010 and he’s currently a professor at Queen’s.

Dr. Rowe’s conducts research in the field of geosynthetics, which are synthetic products used to stabilize terrain. He’s now turning his focus to assessing the effectiveness of plastic (geomembrane) liners and geosynthetic clay liners in limiting contamination from waste disposal facilities and mining operations.

Rowe is also an elected member of The Royal Society United Kingdom, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.