Siddhartha Roy is an environmental engineer and assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick, where he works in the areas of water quality and treatment, lead (Pb) exposure, environmental epidemiology, international development and environmental justice. He and his Virginia Tech team’s scientific and humanitarian relief work, with residents of Flint Michigan, helped uncover the Flint Water Crisis. These efforts led to declaration of a “Public Health Emergency” by President Obama, garnered over $1.2 billion in relief, and informed the 2018 MI Lead and Copper Rule, the 2021 $1 Trillion federal Infrastructure Bill (H.R. 3684), and the 2024 US EPA Lead and Copper Rule Improvements.
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 1.6 million times worldwide. His recent and current undertakings include supervising routine and disaster-related water quality investigations in underserved communities, post-industrial cities, and public schools in the United States, West Africa, and South Asia, conducting research on water infrastructure corrosion, impacts of contaminated water on the health, educational and psychological outcomes in pregnant women, young children, and vulnerable populations, and technological and policy fixes to reduce the occurrence of lead exposure globally, and executive producing documentaries and podcasts to enhance public understanding of science.
Siddhartha received a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering with advisor Dr. Marc Edwards from Virginia Tech, where he was the 2017 Graduate Student of the Year.
