Department biomedical engineering

New Jersey Institute of Technology aims to be a nexus of innovation that embraces new tech, commercializes groundbreaking research, leverages its diversity and tackles global environmental and socioeconomic challenges under a new strategic plan that extends through 2030.

The plan, NJIT Makes An Innovation Nexus, identifies six priorities, spells out the university’s mission to be a leader in research, innovation and entrepreneurship, and reaffirms its core values, including collaboration, social responsibility, diversity and sustainability.

NJIT has established employee resource groups (ERG) that meet regularly and encourage faculty and staff to connect outside of their direct working relationships. This month, NJIT is celebrating its Women’s Leadership and Employee Resource Group and publishing an employee spotlight on one of its members: Miosotis Hernandez, assistant director for first year engineering programs in Newark College of Engineering.

Can you introduce us to your ERG?

Six NJIT researchers have secured grants in the latest round of funding provided by the New Jersey Health Foundation (NJHF), which has increased its funding in both its Community Health, Social Services and Education Program, as well as its traditional research program this year.

The $4 million round of funding brings the NJHF’s total to $70 million since the inception of its annual grant program.

Recently, the ingenuity of Newark College of Engineering’s brightest first-year students was on full display at the 2024 NCE First Year Engineering Design Showcase.

Hundreds of students in NJIT’s introductory engineering course, Fundamentals of Engineering Design 101, are having a greater shared experience during the fall 2023 semester than any incoming class since the 1990s.

Back then, Newark College of Engineering began customizing the FED syllabus for each major field. Chemical engineering students may have learned more about compounding and processing, while civil engineering students learned the basics of surveying and transportation systems.

New Jersey Institute of Technology’s rise in national rankings continues, with U.S. News & World Report placing NJIT No. 86 among national universities for 2024 — a jump of 11 rungs from 2023.

Economic mobility was a new factor in Niche ranking New Jersey Institute of Technology No. 45 among all U.S. institutions for “Best Value,” reaffirming the university’s return on investment to its students and alumni. NJIT earned the No. 1 spot for “Best Value” among New Jersey public institutions.

Niche, a college ranking and review platform, evaluated 4,048 public and private four-year colleges nationwide and developed separate lists for the best academics, value, food, dorms and college life.

A little-known R&D facility, operated by NJIT’s New Jersey Innovation Institute with the U.S. Army Picatinny Arsenal for its primary client, is beginning to thrive one year after moving off-campus.

The facility is called COMET — Collaborative Operationalized Manufacturing Engineering and Training — located about 30 miles northwest of NJIT’s Newark campus, close to Picatinny, which is the Army headquarters for conventional weapons development.

Stuti Mohan, a senior biomedical engineering student, was the winner of the top Dr. James F. Stevenson Innovation Award at the 2023 Undergraduate Summer Research and Innovation (URI) Symposium at NJIT.

Her project sought to identify a non-invasive yet precise method to diagnose the tapping foot of a subject. Mohan’s research area in the Sensorimotor Quantification and Rehabilitation Lab (SQRL) is the ongoing pursuit of improving concussion management. 

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.