Chrystoff Camacho, an inventor and budding entrepreneur who developed an aerial reforestation device while he was an engineering technology student at NJIT, received a Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award from the Research & Development Council of New Jersey for his drone-deployed seed capsule. Camacho’s device, a biodegradable packet containing seeds and mineral-rich soil, is loaded into what looks like a tiny missile that is dropped from the air. With its cone tip, it is designed to perforate the ground to implant the capsule, but to also allow water to permeate in dry regions where the…

Tara Alvarez, a professor of biomedical engineering who studies the links between visual disorders and the brain and develops novel devices to identify and treat them, has been named a fellow of the American Academy of Optometry (AAO). Alvarez joined approximately 300 fellows, who are the leading scientists and clinicians in the field, at an induction ceremony this month at the academy’s 2019 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. At the conference, she gave a talk on the neural mechanisms underlying a vision therapy that helps patients with a disorder known as convergence insufficiency (CI) to…

Kamela Chandrika, a soft-spoken third-year biomedical engineering major, remembers some of the challenges she faced during her first days at NJIT — like going to the Bursar’s Office to pay her tuition bill, but not knowing how to fill out a check. Even before arriving at the university she faced school-related hurdles, particularly in navigating the application and financial aid processes. Filing a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), for instance, proved frustrating because she did not know what information she needed to complete it. And while her parents were very supportive…

Saint Barnabas Medical Center (SBMC) in Livingston, N.J., is no stranger to accolades. Among other notable rankings, the acute-care teaching hospital has received 16 A ratings in a row from the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, and is one of less than 41 hospitals in the country to achieve this consistency. The hospital was seeking to further improve its delivery of patient care by reducing emergency department (ED) delays. Upon learning of this objective as an invited guest at an SBMC leadership meeting, NJIT knew it could help and offered to apply the collective know-how of its Martin…

One of the enduring puzzles of hearing loss is the decline in a person’s ability to determine where a sound originates, a key survival faculty that allows animals – from lizards to humans – to pinpoint the location of danger, prey and group members. In modern times, finding a lost cell phone by using the application "Find My Device,” just to find it had slipped under a sofa pillow, relies on minute differences in the ringing sound that reaches the ears. Unlike other sensory perceptions, such as feeling where raindrops hit the skin or being able to distinguish high notes from low on the piano…

The surge in mail-order drug deliveries, amid rising temperatures and climate volatility, presents a growing challenge to the security of the pharmaceutical supply chain. Every time vaccine is subject to excessive heat or cold, for example, its potency may be diminished, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A single exposure to freezing temperatures can destroy a batch entirely. As can excessive heat. Earlier this year, a doctor in Australia reported to ABC News that she’d jettisoned an entire shipment of vaccines, including for meningitis, for the third year in…

They headed out at 8 a.m. on a Friday in September for a whirlwind excursion of Manhattan-based startups, accelerators, incubators and venture capital firms. And after traversing the city, between midtown and downtown, they returned to NJIT at day’s end with a firsthand view and better understanding of the world of entrepreneurship. The group of 15 Highlanders — students from the university’s Martin Tuchman School of Management, Ying Wu College of Computing and Newark College of Engineering — were treated to tours and discussions during the trip, a first-of-its-kind for the Entrepreneur…

MengChu Zhou, a pioneer in automation science and engineering who optimizes systems, from manufacturing, to data centers, to transportation, to glean efficiencies and improve outcomes, is this year’s winner of NJIT’s Excellence in Research award. Zhou, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, uses Petri nets – mathematical models that track discrete events in distributed systems – plus the internet of things, big data analysis and machine learning to build smart systems. He is currently working on information and control flows in semiconductor manufacturing that will…

There were no digital computers at NJIT, known as Newark College of Engineering, in 1960. This was not a unique situation. Most computers in 1960 were room-sized beasts performing logic through vacuum tubes. A few companies made smaller machines, when small was a relative term meaning something about the size of a Mini Cooper. Large universities at that time might lease a mainframe, but most organizations including Newark College of Engineering instead purchased punch-card accounting systems for administrative use, along with mechanical terminals called teletypes to access…

A blow to the head or powerful shock wave on the battlefield can cause immediate, significant damage to a person’s skull and the tissue beneath it. But the trauma does not stop there. The impact sets off a chemical reaction in the brain that ravages neurons and the networks that supply them with nutrients and oxygen. It is the secondary effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI), which can lead to long-term cognitive, psychological and motor system damage, that piqued the interest of a team of NJIT biomedical engineers. To counter them, they are developing a therapy, to be injected at the site…