Ning Lu has been working on fundamental concepts of effective stress (suction stress) and soil water potential (matric suction) in the past two decades. He has unified soil’s effective stress under both saturated and unsaturated conditions, moving beyond the classical Terzaghi’s and Bishop’s effective stress representations. For his work on unification of effective stress, he received American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Norman Medal twice; first in 2007 for conceptualization of suction stress, and second in 2021 for formulation of a practical closed form effective stress equation. He further defines a general thermodynamics-based pore water potential in soil under both saturated and unsaturated conditions. In the past two decades, he has formulated a new paradigm for slope stability under variably saturated conditions, which has been bestowed by ASCE for its 2017 R. B. Peck Award, and M. A. Biot Medal. He is the recipient of 2023 ASCE Karl Terzaghi Award. He is a distinguished member of ASCE, a fellow of Geological Society of America, and Engineering Mechanics Institute. He has published two widely used textbooks: Unsaturated Soil Mechanics (Lu and Likos, 2004, John Wiley and Sons), and Hillslope Hydrology and Stability (Lu and Godt, 2013, Cambridge University Press).