John A. Reif, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

In a study of COVID-19 pathways inside supermarkets, a team of environmental engineers and modelers investigated the role that surfaces play not as infection hazards, but rather as deterrents. Shelves, floors and ceilings proved to be attachment magnets for virus-laden particles, reducing the concentration of suspended particles in the air by as much as 50%, according to the team’s simulations. Their report was published last month in the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Environmental Engineering. “Surfaces can reduce the airborne spread of disease particles substantially...

Nicholas DeNichilo ’73, M.S. ’78 marveled as a child at the construction equipment that brought buildings, bridges and highways to life before his eyes. Decades later, he still feels that magic. Comments such as “green energy is so exciting” regularly punctuate conversations about his daily work. As the president and CEO of engineering giant Mott MacDonald, North America, DeNichilo now takes on transportation, water and energy infrastructure projects made vastly more complex by resiliency problems such as climate change and earthquakes. In Los Angeles, for example, his firm is designing...

For his senior capstone project, Niyam Shah went big: The civil engineering major and his teammates designed a 40-story commercial tower with a thick concrete core and X-patterned steel bracing for an empty lot on Manhattan’s building-jammed West Side. “The core supports the building, but the higher up you go, the more the building tilts, so we added steel to brace against wind forces,” said Shah, who is this year’s “Outstanding Senior” for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and a keen designer. The team chose a commercial building, with its 15-ft.-high ceilings,...

For doctoral student Gayani Gunarathna, the Ph.D. Professional Development Series of seminars offered by NJIT’s Graduate Studies Office (GSO) has been a boon as she gets set to launch her career. Gunarathna, who will be a geotechnical engineer in New York City for WSP USA, a global engineering professional services firm, said she has a lot of useful information to draw upon from the series. The GSO began holding the seminars this past fall, with the goal to assist students in both improving their productivity and becoming more effective in securing jobs after graduating. The topics have...