Jordan Hu College of Science and Liberal Arts

NJIT’s McNair Scholars have been igniting their research efforts in campus labs this summer, and many are starting to see their career aspirations take shape in the process. NJIT’s Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement program has often been described as life-changing by those selected ever since the first scholar class was announced in 1999. The program provides many underrepresented or disadvantaged students with preparation for doctoral study, as well as a plethora of advanced research and travel opportunities that have a lasting impact on their future. This year’s class...

Climbing temperatures in the Arctic tundra are transforming inorganic mercury deposited by power plants and other industrial polluters, some of it inert for decades, into a neurotoxin that is accumulating in the region’s lake sediments, wetland ponds, soils and food chains. Certain tiny anaerobic microorganisms are thought to play a role in accelerating the formation of methylmercury (MeHg), a neurotoxin. As the permafrost thaws, researchers posit, decaying soil releases an abundance of nutrients. Those nutrients fuel the metabolisms of anaerobes, which convert inorganic mercury into...

With data from Big Bear Solar Observatory’s Goode Solar Telescope, researchers discover intense wave energy in the coldest region on the Sun, the sunspot umbra, which is driving puzzling temperatures in the star’s upper atmosphere.     Nearly five thousand kilometers above the Sun’s surface lies a century-old question for solar physicists — how are temperatures in the star’s upper atmosphere, or corona, hundreds of times hotter than temperatures at the Sun’s visible surface? An international team of scientists has a new answer to the question — commonly referred to as the Sun’...

The soot permeating the air in New Jersey and New York this month — courtesy of massive wildfires in Canada — is exactly what a New Jersey Institute of Technology professor is studying to determine its impact on climate change. Alexei Khalizov, an associate professor of chemistry and environmental science, is partnering with Associate Professor Gennady Gor on the three-year project, which began last year and is supported by a $620,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Specifically, they’re examining the soot created by wildfires and the burning of fossil fuels in hopes of better...