Part of an ongoing special successful student feature in the lead up to spring convocation 2013.

Originally from Gander, Grant Strong came to Memorial in 2002 to begin a B.Sc. in computer science. He quickly followed up with a B.Ed. with the intention of teaching technology in the school system. But after finishing the program, he decided to stick around a little longer for a master’s degree.

Mr. Strong’s first idea was to apply to computer engineering, but mistakenly sent it to the computer science department instead. Rather than just passing along the errant file, department head Dr. Wolfgang Banzhaf called him up to offer him a position with a new computer science faculty member, Dr. Minglun Gong.

“Gong and Strong, think of the conference paper bylines!” he joked. “It was meant to be. Then when I was almost done, it was suggested that I should apply to NSERC to see if I could get funding for a doctoral degree and I did.”

That led to a few more years with Dr. Gong during which time Mr. Strong jumped to the aid of the head of research for Google’s New York office during her visit to Memorial. She was having difficulty connecting to the university’s network prior to giving a keynote talk.

“After getting her online, I was about to leave, but then decided to stay to hear her out. She proceeds to talk about all sorts of Google-y things, and then brings up something I referenced in my master’s thesis.”

A quick chat after the meeting led to a three-month internship with the New York office, which led to interviews for a full-time position with the company. While in Norway on a four-month exchange at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Mr. Strong received a call offering him a job with the California branch of Google in Silicon Valley.

He then returned to Memorial at the end of the Norway exchange and wrapped up his duties as a PhD candidate. He successfully defended his PhD thesis on April 22 and left for California the following day.

“The way things intersected was interesting. Everything just kind of worked out."