ASCE fellows are legally registered professional engineers or land surveyors who have made significant technical or professional contributions and have demonstrated notable achievement in responsible charge of engineering activity for at least 10 years following election to the ASCE grade of member. Fellows occupy the Society's second-highest membership grade, exceeded only by honorary members.

M. Katherine Banks, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, is a professor of civil engineering at Purdue University and in 2006 was named head of the School of Civil Engineering there. A college professor for more than 18 years, Banks has imparted her knowledge of environmental processes and design to hundreds of civil engineering students. She has made important contributions in elucidating the workings of biological remediation systems, and she has served as the principal investigator in multi-disciplinary research grants totaling more than $18 million from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as well as from industry and state government. She has also served as director of the EPA's Midwest Hazardous Substance Research Center, as associate director of the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training for Advanced Life Support, and as codirector of the Center for Phytoremediation Research and Development, all of which are at Purdue. Banks has more than 100 journal articles, reports, and book chapters to her credit, and she served as editor in chief of ASCE's Journal of Environmental Engineering from 2004 to 2006. A member of ASCE for 20 years, she is a registered professional engineer in Indiana and Kansas.

(Taken from ASCE News)