For Sam Sabet, Transferring to NJIT Led to Triple Degrees and a Dream Job

Sam Sabet, the new Chief Technology Officer of industrial audio firm Shure Inc., has an NJIT degree for every season of his career.

After transferring from American University in Cairo, Sabet arrived in Newark in 1995 and earned a B.S. in what was then called computer information systems. He returned for an M.S. in electrical engineering to help with his unexpected career in underwater telecommunications at AT&T, and then opted for a Ph.D. in information systems and management, aiding his career evolution into leadership at Crestron Electronics.

Shure recruited him in June and Sabet said he is happy to have taken the chance. "This is my dream job, working every day with some of the smartest people I've ever worked with, helping guide and craft the vision of new technologies. I wake up every morning excited to come into work," he said.

"It's a 98-year-old company. They are the premier manufacturer and provider of audio products. You look at any professional venue like a concert, or any of the famous singers, and you'll notice that they all use Shure microphones," whether it's Bruce Springsteen rocking the Meadowlands or Taylor Swift singing in Los Angeles, he explained.

But those microphones are vastly more technically complex than most people know. Each one is a computer inside — processor, memory, batteries, digital signal processing, C programming code — and Sabet believes that artificial intelligence is on its way to the party, as it's already being studied for use in post-production.

Shure isn't just in the entertainment business. They also make microphones for corporate applications. Sabet said NJIT has such products in lecture halls and large conference rooms. "Gone are the days where everybody in the meeting's going to be in the same room. You can't have a great meeting across five or six locations if your audio gets garbled," Sabet observed. On that front, AI is helping out with transcription functions, such as identifying not just what's being said but also who said it, he stated.

I loved going to school there and I love learning.

Managing the teams that develop such products leads Sabet to draw on skills he honed as a Highlander. Primarily, he said, the most important skill for an engineering manager is to never stop learning.

"If I could, I'd still be a full-time student. I loved going to school there and I love learning. The doctorate part of it wasn't so much to reach the destination but to enjoy the journey," he said.

Sabet said his favorite faculty were Ravi Paul and the late Murray Turoff. He now teaches as well, focusing on graduate-level courses in NJIT's Ying Wu College of Computing. These include IS-663, Advanced System Analysis & Design, and IS-676, Requirements Engineering — the latter formerly taught by Paul. Sabet travels between home in Texas and Shure's headquarters in the Midwest, and teaches exclusively online.

Something that successful alumni have in common, and Sabet is no exception, is encouragement for undergraduates to embrace NJIT's unique opportunities and get involved in activities outside of class, whether it's for experience, a salary or just for fun. Sabet enjoyed working in the campus pub and loved IT support roles and was even featured in a Vector article for winning the 1995-1996 Student Employee of the Year award.

"But above all, don't take the easy way and be complacent. Always search to challenge yourself," Sabet stated. "That's the thing that I learned the most at NJIT, to get out of that comfort zone. What I wish I knew back then was to enjoy the journey."