Kerry Rowe


Ronald Kerry Rowe is a Canadian civil engineer of Australian birth, one of the pioneers of geosynthetics.

Education

Rowe was educated at Fort Street High School, Sydney and the University of Sydney, where he was awarded a BSc in 1973, BE 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 at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario where he was responsible for the administration of all research. He is presently 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, 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 liners and geosynthetic clay liners 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 and the International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.

Publications