NJIT Researcher Ayushi Sangoi Recognized on Major League Hacking Top 50 List
Ayushi Sangoi, 23, a Newark, N.J., resident and researcher at New Jersey Institute of Technology has been named one of 2022’s MLH Top 50 – a list compiled each year by Major League Hacking (MLH) of the organization’s most inspiring community members. The recipients are recognized for their exceptional contributions to the tech ecosystem and STEM education.
Sangoi stood out from other applicants for her unique road to becoming a prodigious hacker. A current Ph.D. candidate at the Vision and Neural Engineering Laboratory, she has earned a dual degree in biomedical engineering and computer engineering from NJIT, won several hackathons, and has developed a reputation as a leader in her field, advocating for underrepresented groups in technology. She is currently a campus facilitator for Kode with Klossy, helping to recruit women and non-binary students in the Newark area to code in HTML and CSS.
Sangoi, an Albert Dorman Honors College scholar, has previously been awarded the Tau Beta Pi Graduate Fellowship, the Provost's Fellowship, and a grant from the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
“My first few hackathons were hardware hacks because that is what I understood more, and I did not feel my coding skills were up to par with all of the men at the tech school I went to,” says Sangoi. “Now, I have gone to over 40 hackathons, and experienced so many different seminars and met so many other hackers that I have come to appreciate hackers in all walks of life and experience.”
Sangoi’s first hackathon project was a hardware hack, a boat she aptly named Frankenstein which would run based on the contractions of an electrically stimulated frog leg. At Hack(H)er413, Sangoi secured her first hackathon win with a MATLAB project. She now looks to create projects that can help others, and enjoys using languages that are more popular with engineers than hackers, ensuring that her projects stand out.
“I enjoy challenging myself in that manner, to make an interesting project in something the other hackers may not use,” says Sangoi. “The diverse and empowering hacker community has shed light on different issues that some populations may face, and the willingness of these hackers to actually promote equity through technology inspires me to do the same.”
“It is a high honor to be chosen as an MLH Top 50 recipient as each is selected from a pool of more than 150,000 active community members, comprising 1 in 3 new programmers in the United States (and even more abroad),” says Nick Quinlan, MLH chief operating officer. ”To be selected is to have your achievements recognized as the top percent of the top percent of new technologists today.”
Major League Hacking (MLH) is a mission-driven organization and certified B-Corp focused on empowering the next generation of technologists. MLH runs the largest community of early-career developers worldwide that now has more than 500,000 members. Through programs like hackathons, internships, and workshops, community members count on MLH to gain practical hands-on experience, build their professional networks, and ultimately launch their careers. MLH works with employers like AWS, Facebook, and Capital One to identify, train, and hire amazing, diverse technical talent directly from that community.
