Siddhartha Roy

Siddhartha Roy is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at Rutgers. His research focuses on water quality and treatment, human health, disaster response, and global development. Roy and his Virginia Tech team’s scientific and humanitarian work with residents of Flint, Michigan, helped uncover the Flint Water Crisis, led to the declaration of a “Public Health Emergency” by President Obama, garnered over $1.3 billion in relief, and informed the the 2021 $1 Trillion federal Infrastructure Bill, and the 2024 Lead and Copper Rule Improvements. His 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.

Roy’s group combines laboratory experiments, field studies, analytical method development, epidemiological approaches, and computational modeling to investigate how metals corrode in water infrastructure, assess disinfection and treatment technologies, trace contamination sources through isotope fingerprinting, and understand the health impacts of contaminated water. The team conducts water quality investigations and hypothesis-driven research with communities across the U.S., West Africa, and South Asia. Through partnerships with communities, utilities, and government agencies, his group advances citizen science monitoring, pilots and implements engineering solutions, and informs policies to reduce exposure to lead (Pb), pathogens, and other contaminants in drinking water.

Roy received a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering with advisor Dr. Marc Edwards from Virginia Tech, where he was named Graduate Student of the Year.