Civil Engineering Society Honors TAM Alum

Henry Petroski (MSTAM 1964, PhDTAM 1968) was recently named a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The Duke University professor was recognized with the society’s highest honor based on his advancement of the practice of civil engineering and civil engineering education; his achievements as a renowned educator, author, researcher and lecturer; and for his efforts to increase the public’s understanding of the role of the engineer through his many published works.

Petroski has published 14 books and numerous articles and essays for journals, newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Before joining Duke University, where he served as chair of the department of civil and environmental engineering from 1991 to 2000 and now serves as the Aleksander S. Vesic professor of civil engineering and professor of history, Petroski was a mechanical engineer and group leader at Argonne National Laboratory. There, he and his son, Stephen J. Petroski, invented a store system laid out with shelves and aisles that radiates from a central hub area known as the “radial store system.” Prior to that, he held teaching positions at both the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Petroski serves as chair of ASCE’s History and Heritage Committee and is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Institute of Engineers of Ireland and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is an honorary member of the Moles and a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Engineering. He has received ASME’s Ralph Coats Roe Medal, the Wester Society of Engineers’ Washington Award and ASCE’s History and Heritage Award. In 2004, he was appointed by former President Bush to the U.S. Nuclear Waste Review Board.