When Dr. Kshama Roy journeyed from Dhaka, Bangladesh to St. John’s in 2010, he came to start work on a master’s degree at Memorial University in civil engineering.

Dr. Roy would end up staying for seven years, completing both his master’s and PhD at Memorial and becoming an integral part of our community as a student leader.

From 2012 to 2013, he was president of Memorial’s Engineering Graduate Society.

He acted as vice-president of the Memorial chapter of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers and volunteered with the Bangladesh Students’ Association.

He worked with the Graduate Students Union's Board of Directors and somehow found time to serve as a Memorial Ambassador as well.

And because he worked as a teaching assistant (TA), research assistant and TA trainer, he was consistently involved with Memorial’s Teaching Assistants’ Union (TAUMUN). He eventually served as president of TAUMUN from 2013 to 2015.

While still a student, and with the assistance of his family, Dr. Roy established the Kshirode Chandra Roy Memorial Fund in memory of his late father. The fund provides for the full educational and living costs of seven underprivileged female students in Bangladesh.

 

Dr. Kshama Roy in the Queen Elizabeth II Library on Memorial’s St. John’s campus in 2016. Photo from Memorial University Archives.

 

 

Dr. Roy is the only person to ever receive the Chancellor’s Graduate Award and the Fry Family Foundation Graduate Leadership Award twice.

He first accomplished the feat in 2013 after graduating from his master’s program. He received the awards again in 2018 after completing his PhD.

The Chancellor's Graduate Award is the most prestigious leadership recognition awarded by Memorial University. It is given at convocation to the student of the graduating class who has demonstrated the greatest leadership contribution to graduate student life and other areas of the community during his or her university years.

The winner of the Chancellor’s Graduate Award is also awarded the Fry Family Foundation Graduate Leadership Award.

And while he was looking for ways to support other students and their shared community, his graduate research was gaining recognition.

He studied how interactions between soil and structures could play a significant role in mitigating risks and enhancing the resilience of infrastructure against the natural hazards of climate change.

His work led to breakthrough models for sustainable infrastructure.

Throughout his career, he has received over 50 prestigious awards, including the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) Early Accomplishment Summit Award, Pipeline and Gas Journal’s Innovative Thinker Award, and the Canadian Geotechnical Society’s Early Achievement Award.

Despite all the recognition, Dr. Roy remains grateful to his community for the blessings in his life. He has said that he is standing on the shoulders of giants.

He has written eloquently about the selflessness that is required to become an effective leader.

After accepting his most recent Fry Family Award, he quoted the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, who wrote, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists; when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say we did it ourselves.”