Biography

Siddhartha Roy is an environmental engineer and postdoctoral research scientist at Virginia Tech, who works at the nexus of drinking water, public health and environmental justice. He and his team’s scientific and humanitarian work, with residents of Flint Michigan, helped uncover the Flint Water Crisis. Siddhartha’s work has been discussed in The New York Times, BBC World Service, and the PBS® NOVA documentary “Poisoned Water,” and his TED talk “Science in service to the public good” has been viewed over a million times worldwide.

His current undertakings include supervising water quality investigations in underserved communities and post-industrial cities across the U.S., conducting research on plumbing corrosion, maternal blood lead/fetal death modeling, citizen science, wastewater (or, biosolids) based epidemiology, and perverse incentives in STEM academia, and executive producing documentaries and podcasts to enhance public understanding of science. Siddhartha received a Ph.D. in Civil/Environmental Engineering with advisor Dr. Marc Edwards from Virginia Tech, where he was the 2017 Graduate Student of the Year.

His work has won prizes and recognition from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Water Works Association, and the International Water Association.