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Vatsal Shah '08, M.S. '09, Ph.D. '14, a civil engineer with Mott MacDonald who oversees the design and construction of foundations – for wind and solar farms, wastewater treatment plants, tunnels and bridges, among others – in starkly diverse landscapes from the East Coast to Texas, is the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) “Young Engineer of the Year” for 2019.

For the second year in a row, the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) program at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) is ranked number two in the nation by College Factual, a data analytics and research company that focuses on outcomes. Only Georgia Tech is ranked higher on the list of 206 programs evaluated, while MIT is third.

In a 600-ft.-long saltwater wave tank on the coast of New Jersey, a team of NJIT researchers is conducting the largest-ever simulation of the Deepwater Horizon spill to determine more precisely where hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil dispersed following the drilling rig’s explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Jakob Guido’s engineering talent manifested at quite a young age. In kindergarten, he was photographed playing with blocks behind a sign that read: “Future Engineer.” Months later, his first-grade science teacher observed his advanced organizational abilities and pronounced: “You’re going to be an engineer.”

Fast forward 15 years, and Guido, a rising senior majoring in civil engineering, has pursued his seeming destiny with boundless energy, formidable skills and enviable success, punctuating those early predictions with an exclamation point.

On his first day of college, Stephen DePalma ’72 and his classmates received blunt words about their daunting engineering curriculum from then-President Robert Van Houten, clearly intended as a form of “no nonsense” motivation: “Look to your left and look to your right – one of those people will not be there at graduation.”

When Angelo Del Russo ’82 says that he “always wanted to be a builder,” he is not exaggerating. By his early teens, the young enthusiast of masonry, concrete, roofing and carpentry already had a toehold in the industry, regularly working after school and on weekends with local home remodelers in the construction business.

“It was mostly laborious work – raking gravel, pushing wheelbarrows full of concrete – but I loved it. To see the end product – that completed patio or set of stairs – was always so satisfying,” he recounts. “And as a teenager, I was making money.”

This week, nearly 50 of the year’s most promising NJIT student-researchers gathered to present their work to the campus community at the university’s annual year-end research competition — the 2019 Dana Knox Showcase “A Glimpse Into the Future.”

For the latest in a series of eloquent centennial-year tributes to its traditions and people, a record crowd of more than 250 flocked to Newark College of Engineering’s 21st annual Salute to Engineering Excellence, held last night at the Park Avenue Club in Florham Park.

“What we’ve achieved at NJIT is on the bedrock of NCE – the oldest and largest college of the university,” President Joel Bloom noted at the evening’s outset.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to Deliver 2019 Commencement Address and Receive Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters

The technology that engineering students Matt Reda and Rudolph Brazdovic installed last year in the remote, hilly community of Milot, Haiti, was simple enough: a modified bicycle with a back wheel that turns a generator, producing 20 watts of electricity. What was less straightforward, they quickly learned, was how to manage it.

Unlike devices for individual dwellings, such as water filters, the NJIT Light Cycle is a public service: a cellphone charging station for the approximately 50 people living within a mile of a regional gathering place.