Five NJIT students —  Ivan Mitevski, Kiera Nissen, Omar Qari, Priya Rajbabu and Michael Vitti — have been named 2018 Governor’s STEM Scholars, an honor that is providing them with unique opportunities to learn from and network with New Jersey STEM professionals, research organizations, academic institutions and state policymakers. They join their fellow scholars from universities, high schools and academies throughout New Jersey in attending STEM conferences and field trips, and in participating in a team-based research project.

NJIT inventors, including a growing number of ambitious student entrepreneurs, are beating new paths to the marketplace.

Most recently, Treena Arinzeh, director of NJIT’s Tissue Engineering and Applied Biomaterials Laboratory, won a grant from the University City Science Center in Philadelphia to commercialize technology to reduce the recovery time and cost associated with bone graft procedures.

From large-scale weather or environmental disaster predictions and efficient design of vehicles and power generators, to understanding how bacteria propel themselves and how nutrients are delivered to different organs in our body at the cell level — researchers will need to find new ways of studying the complex flow of liquids, gases and plasmas that drive or characterize intricate climatic, transportation and biological systems.

Peter Engler was four years old when his family fled Berlin in the wake of Kristallnacht, the infamous “Night of Broken Glass.” Stateless, their passports stamped “J” for Juden by the Nazis, the Englers made their way to Shanghai, one of the only free ports in the world at the time. Soon after arriving, they were confined to a mile-square Jewish ghetto by Japanese occupiers.

The research that Assistant Professor of Physics Cristiano Dias is pursuing has the potential to expand our knowledge of phenomena that can affect the creation of dangerous obstructions in undersea pipelines transporting natural gas and the formation of protein-based fibers in the brain related to diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Battle-inflicted head injuries are as old as war itself, evidenced by the copper helmets worn by Bronze Age soldiers to deflect blows from spears and axes. Over the ensuing millennia, as weapons evolved, so did armor. Today, the powerful explosive devices of 21st century warfare have once again raised the stakes, prompting urgent calls to re-engineer protective gear.