Roland Samimy, PhD
Chief Resilience and Sustainability Officer at Village of Key Biscayne
Dr. Samimy is a coastal systems and water resources scientist experienced in water supply studies, watershed and estuarine management, surface and groundwater hydrology, nutrient dynamics in aquatic systems, oceanographic assessment (physical and biological) related to marine hydrokinetic energy development, contamination assessment and remedial action planning, and aquifer analyses. Presently, Dr. Samimy holds the position of Chief Resilience Officer for the Village of Key Biscayne. Prior to his current position. Dr. Samimy was a Senior Scientist - Water Resources Technical Manager with Atkins North America (Miami Office) while also maintaining his 17-year long professional association with the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth where he continues to hold the position of Senior Research Manager for the Coastal Systems Program within the Department of Estuarine and Ocean Science.
He is an Explorers Club Fellow, is bilingual in English/French with partial fluency in Spanish and is a Trimix certified decompression diver.
Before joining Atkins, Dr. Samimy worked for the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, School for Marine Science and Technology, where he served as Senior Research Manager for the Coastal Systems Program and is the Technical Coordinator and Technical Lead in Hydrology for the Massachusetts Estuaries Project, one of the largest estuarine restoration programs in the United States. His research centers on understanding the role that biological activity within a coastal watershed plays in relation to the attenuation of nutrient loads prior to discharge to an estuarine receiving water and how that attenuation can vary with respects to watershed characteristics. He has also been responsible for technical aspects of oceanographic surveying of multiple tidal power sites (Western Passage and Cobscook Bay) in Maine for Ocean Renewable Power Corporation testing of turbine generating units as well as oceanographic surveying and environmental assessment for the development of hydrokinetic power in Muskeget Channel, Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts.
