The awards are piling up. Craig Benson, a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor and Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Geological Engineering at University of Wisconsin–Madison, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) recognized Benson recently as well in selecting him to deliver the prestigious Ralph B. Peck lecture in 2012.
In the NAE release, the Academy wrote that Benson has contributed “…improvements in design, construction, and monitoring of earthen liners and covers for municipal hazardous and radioactive waste landfills.”
Benson has long given his time to the field in a variety of roles as he has pursued his research. In addition to the chair position he holds at Wisconsin he also serves as Director of Sustainability Research and Education. He is a vice-president of the Geo-Institute of ASCE’s Board of Governors and is a vice chair of the Executive Committee of ASTM Committee D18 on Soil and Rock. He previously served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Geo-Institute’s Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. Dr. Benson is a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Alumni.
In an interview with Katie Caron of the University of Wisconsin’s newspaper (The Badger Herald), Benson described himself as “awestruck” following his receipt of the NAE news. “I nearly fell off my chair….These kinds of things are rare.”
He noted that the award—along with his UW engineering colleague Max Carbon’s NAE election—opens important opportunities for them to “define the future of engineering and the direction of engineering education.”
You can congratulate Dr. Benson in person during the Geo-Institute’s GeoCongress 2012 in Oakland, California, 25–29 March 2012. There, he’ll deliver the Ralph B. Peck lecture.
