Four decades of study on reinforced embankments on soft soils and rate-sensitive clays

Educated at the University of Sydney Rowe worked with the Australian Government Department of Construction 8 years prior to immigrating to Canada. He spent 20 years as a professor at The University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. From 2000 to 2010, he served as Vice-Principal (Research) at Queen’s University in Kingston. Since 2010 he has held the Canada Research Chair in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering at Queen’s where he is also the Barrington Batchelor Distinguished University Professor. His professional practice and research has covered a broad range of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering including extensive work on geotextiles, geomembranes, geogrids, geonets landfills, ponds, dams as well as reinforced embankments and walls. He is a past President of the International Geosynthetics Society, the Canadian Geotechnical Society and the Engineering Institute of Canada. He has been selected to present the world’s most prestigious named geotechnical lectures including the Giroud Lecture (2002), Rankine Lecture (2005), Karl Terzaghi Lecture (2017), and Mercer Lecture (2019). In 2013, the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering created a named lecture to honour his pioneering contributions to geoenvironmental engineering, the ISSMGE R. Kerry Rowe Lecture. He has received numerous awards and been elected a a Distingished Member of ASCE (it hiighest award), Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the Royal Society (London, UK), UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Canada, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada (O.C.).