By Jackey Locke

Dr. Kshama Roy’s (M.Eng.’12, PhD’17) professional career is taking off.

The Memorial engineering alumnus recently accepted a position as principal engineer, integrity solutions and compliance, energy systems with DNV, the world’s leading classification society and a recognized advisor for the maritime industry.

DNV delivers world-renowned testing certification and technical advisory services to the energy value chain, including renewables, oil and gas and energy management.

Move to Memorial

Dr. Roy was born and raised in Bangladesh and came to Memorial in 2010 to study geotechnical engineering.

His main supervisor was Dr. Bipul Hawlader, professor, acting head (civil engineering) and a research chair in seafloor mechanics. His supervisory committee included Dr. Shawn Kenny, Carleton University, and Dr. Ian Moore, Queen’s University.

“I discovered Dr. Hawlader’s research group at Memorial offers a unique graduate program where you can study advanced soil mechanics and its application on the soil-structure interaction problems,” said Dr. Roy. “In addition, St. John’s is a place where you can meet some of the sweetest people in the world, and I am proud to call St. John’s my Canadian home.”

Reflecting on his eight years at Memorial, Dr. Roy, who is currently also an adjunct professor, says he is proud to be a Memorial graduate and says the university has played a key role in his career path.

“I was extremely lucky to have an academic supervisor like Dr. Hawlader, who always believed in me and encouraged me to go above and beyond,” he said. “Memorial helped me develop not only technical skills, but also the “people” skills needed to be successful. I was also very fortunate to have mentors, like Dr. Leonard Lye, former associate dean, graduate studies, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, who helped me develop leadership skills.”

During his time at Memorial, Dr. Roy was president of the Teaching Assistants’ Union and the Engineering Graduate Students Society, among other leadership positions.

“These opportunities helped me to develop relationship building and networking skills and how to think differently to lead from the front,” he said.

His professional career

And leading from the front is what he is doing.

Prior to joining DNV, Dr. Roy was employed by Northern Crescent Inc. (NC), a Calgary-based engineering service company. He started out as a geotechnical and pipeline stress specialist and was soon promoted to lead of special projects/pipeline integrity and principal investigator at NC Innovation.

After working for NC for almost five years, Dr. Roy was recruited by DNV. In his current role, he works with world-class experts in the area of pipeline integrity.

“I want to be a thought leader,” he said. “I want to contribute to my community and society, overall. I built my expertise in a niche area that needs a lot more work. I enjoy challenges and this area offers me more than enough. Becoming a principal engineer at the age of 34 in a company that has been in service for over 158 years, has more than 15,000 employees worldwide and 350 offices operating in more than 100 countries was not even in my wildest dreams.”

Awards and honours

Dr. Roy earned many prestigious awards during his time at Memorial, including the Chancellor’s Graduate Award and the Fry Family Foundation Leadership Award.

More recently, he received Pipeline and Gas Journal’s 2021 Innovative Thinker Award and American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ 2020 Outstanding Young Pipeline Professional Award. He has received more than 50 awards and honours to-date.

Accolades

“This is an excellent example of success not only for Dr. Roy, but also our department and university,” said Dr. Hawlader. “I believe it reassures our confidence in the great quality of teaching and research we are conducting in our faculty.”

“Congratulations to Dr. Roy on this well-deserved career growth,” said Dr. Octavia Dobre, interim dean, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. “We are very proud of the achievements of students trained at Memorial. It reflects on the exceptional training environment provided in our faculty.”

While not a typical career path for a geotechnical engineer, Dr. Roy says he is enjoying his professional career while finding time to volunteer and give back to his community.

“I am having the time of my life; however, I want to come back to academia at some point in my career,” he said. “I strongly believe that industry experience will become a crucial part for becoming an ‘awesome’ professor who shapes future leaders.”