Posted on March 4, 2026
HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE — Dr. Sally Shoop has been awarded the 2026 Can-Am Civil Engineering Amity Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
The award recognizes civil engineers who have made outstanding and unusual contributions toward the advancement of professional relationships between the civil engineers of the United States of America and Canada. The award was established by ASCE in April 1972 by the initiative and endowment of James A. Vance, Hon. M.ASCE.
In honoring Shoop, a research engineer at the U.S. Army Engineer and Research Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, New Hampshire, the society cited her leadership in vehicle mobility on unpaved and snow surfaces and noted that her work has furthered the safety and accessibility of civil and military vehicles throughout the cold regions of the globe.
“Working with international colleagues of the ASCE Cold Regions Engineering Division and the U.S. and Canadian military in the Arctic has been one of the highlights of my career,” said Shoop.
Shoop is an expert in how seasonal changes in snow, ice and frozen ground affect ground vehicle and aircraft operations. Her research covers the impact of these conditions on vehicle performance and, conversely, the impact of vehicles on the terrain. She has conducted modeling and experiments in many of the cold regions of the world including the Arctic, Antarctica and northern Europe. Her work has been crucial for NATO and NORAD military mobility and contributed to development of deep-snow runways for wheeled aircraft in Antarctica and expedient runways for military aircraft in the Arctic.
Shoop is a highly accomplished geotechnical engineer with over 200 publications specializing in frost action in soils, off-road vehicle winter mobility, and vehicle-terrain modeling. She has contributed to numerous books, as editor of the Journal of Terramechanics, and held leadership positions in several professional organizations, including serving as president of the International Society for Terrain-Vehicle Systems and chair of the ASCE Cold Regions Engineering Division.
