By Jackey Locke

Rajib Dey had more than one reason to celebrate when he received his doctor of philosophy degree (PhD) at Memorial University this past October. Mr. Dey was also awarded the prestigious Chancellor’s Graduate Award with the Fry Family Foundation Award.

“It was such a wonderful feeling and hard to explain,” he said. “I am really honoured to receive this prestigious award and to be considered as one of Memorial’s most outstanding graduate student leaders.

“It’s a great achievement for any graduate student who is involved in various leadership roles in addition to his/her study and research.”

The Chancellor's Graduate Award is awarded to 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 Fry Family Foundation Leadership Award is presented to a graduate student who has been selected as Memorial University of Newfoundland’s most outstanding graduate student leader. This award is given at convocation to the student who has been selected to receive the Chancellor Award which is the most prestigious leadership recognition awarded by Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Mr. Dey is originally from Bangladesh but has made his home in St. John’s since arriving at Memorial almost eight years ago. He has been very effective balancing his studies with his leadership initiatives. He was president of the Engineering Graduate Students Society, and prior to becoming president; he was its special events co-ordinator. He was also president of the Teaching Assistants’ Union of Memorial University. He organized the DCL conference for the Public Service Alliance of Canada in 2012; he was treasurer of the Bangladesh Students’ Association of Memorial University; an event organizer with the Hindu Temple Association in St. John’s; and member of various committees.

Mr. Dey’s research focus is on geotechnical engineering. For his thesis, he developed an analytical and numerical approach to successfully model large-scale landslides in sensitive clay slopes explaining the true failure mechanisms.

Generally, landslides are always a potential hazard and a great threat to many communities and infrastructure in both onshore and offshore environments,” he explained. “Slides in sensitive clay could be progressive in nature and a large scale slope failure might occur in a very short period. The consequences of a catastrophic slope failure could be very devastating in both cases and might have significant impacts, rising economic, safety, and regulatory and environmental issues. Therefore, it is extremely important to understand the mechanisms involved in large scale slope failure through sensitive clay layers to mitigate the risk of landslides and its consequences.”

Dr. Bipul Hawlader supervised Mr. Dey and is very proud of Mr. Dey’s work ethic both inside and outside of his studies.

“Impressed by Rajib’s performance as a master’s student, he was transferred to the PhD program before completion of his master’s degree,” said Dr. Hawlader. “In addition to his great academic achievements, he made a significant contributions to leadership and volunteering activities at Memorial. His research on landslides in sensitive clay could explain the complex nature of large-scale landslides commonly occurring in eastern Canada in onshore and offshore environments.”