CEE professor emeritus Dr. Frederick VanBuren Lawrence died peacefully on November 14, 2025 at the Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Mass. He was 87 years old.
Dr. Lawrence earned his B.S. degree in civil engineering from Swarthmore College in 1960, and his MS and CE degrees in civil engineering and PhD in materials science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962, 1965, and 1968, respectively. He joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois in 1968, and held an additional appointment on faculty with the Department of Metallurgy and Mining Engineering, now the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
From 1976 to 1989, Dr. Lawrence served as director of the Materials Engineering Research Laboratory, and throughout his career at U of I held additional appointments as the Associate Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Director of the Newmark Structural Engineering Laboratory. As a professor, Dr. Lawrence taught courses in welding and mechanical properties of materials, and construction materials.
As a testament to the esteemed nature of his career, Dr. Lawrence received several awards and honors, including the American Welding Society Adams Memorial Membership Award, The A.E. Davis Silver Medal, The Deutsche Forschung Gemeinschaft Fellowship, and the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois Certificate of Honor. He held professional membership with the American Welding Society (AWS), the American Society for Testing and Materials, and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). He also served as Co-editor of the ASCE Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering from 1988 to 1996.
Dr. Lawrence will be remembered by family and friends as someone who remained a non-stop worker and thinker throughout the course of his life, constantly taking on new challenges and projects that included building harpsichords, painting, gardening, sailing and a myriad of renovations at his beloved family homestead in Waquoit, Mass. He immersed himself fully in whatever project or topic he found interest in, and above all was a good friend and loving father, husband and brother.
Dr. Lawrence will be greatly missed by the CEE family.