Neeraj Sharma - MSc 2014

Neeraj Kumar Sharma took the MSc course in Soil Mechanics and Environmental Geotechnics at Imperial College London in 2013-2014. He is currently working as a Geotechnical Engineer at Atkins – Part of SNC Lavalin based in the Bangalore office, India.

Neeraj graduated with distinction from Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra in 2012 with a Bachelor in Civil Engineering where apart from the taught courses, he spent some time researching and understanding the behaviour of expansive clays and the effects of stabilisation on them by use of waste materials. Post his graduation from BIT Mesra, Neeraj joined Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services as a ‘Consultant’ based in the Ranchi office, India in August 2012 on the nationwide flagship ‘Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna’ project. He was involved in the conduction of laboratory tests of soil samples collected from borrow areas and the preparation of the Detailed Project Reports for the sanctioned roads and bridges prior to construction. He says, “Working in such a fast paced and dynamic project made me realise that I needed to plug in the gaps in my knowledge of basic soil behavior and build on my undergraduate research work on expansive soils. Thus, a post graduate MSc course in soil mechanics was the logical way forward”.

Neeraj chose Imperial College London for pursuing his MSc in Soil Mechanics among several other offers because according to him, “It is a top ranked programmed with world class faculty and customized classroom courses. Add to that a fully funded Commonwealth fellowship and a chance to live in the financial capital of the world, the decision really is a no brainer”.

After graduating from Imperial College in September 2014, Neeraj returned to India and joined Atkins in the Global Design Centre (GDC), Bangalore office where he is currently working as an Assistant Engineer in the Ground Engineering and Tunneling (GE&T) team. He now has more than four years of diverse work experience in the Middle East (Doha Metro Gold and Red Lines), UK (A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon Highway Improvement Scheme) and South Asian (Colombo Port City) projects. Neeraj considers these three projects as a ‘a bit of his career highlight’. He has been involved in the ground characterisation and foundation design for overbridges and gantries in the A14 and Colombo projects. He has also worked on the ‘Construction Impact Assessment and Monitoring’ works due to tunnelling induced settlements and the preparation of the Geotechnical Interpretive Reports (GIR) for Doha Metro Gold and Red Lines. Neeraj says about his work in Atkins, “What I absolutely love about my job is the flexibility that the management gives me to pursue my diverse interests beyond the billable projects. It is due to this support that I have served in multiple positions of responsibility within Atkins”.

Neeraj is a graduate member of the Institute of Civil Engineering (ICE) and is working towards his professional chartership. He is also an Associate Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the International Association of Engineers (IAENG). Owing to his well-rounded persona, Neeraj has won some prestigious international awards in his short career so far – ASCE New Faces of Civil Engineering 2018, Rising Star for Atkins Geotechnical Networks Awards 2018 and the GDC Emerging Star 2017 to name a few.

On the Imperial MSc course, he says “The course curriculum was power packed and I learnt so much in that one year both inside and outside of the classrooms. I expanded my professional networks across the Imperial and the Commonwealth community – networks which I feel are still pretty strong today”.