Newark college engineering

Of the thousands of students graduating from New Jersey Institute of Technology today, many will bring their families to take pictures on the grassy hill in front of Eberhardt Hall — it's a university tradition.

A line quickly formed at noon as students made their way back from official commencement ceremonies at Newark's Prudential Center. Several new alumni spoke about their memories and next steps.

New Jersey Institute of Technology served up a full day of fanfare as its advanced degree graduates walked across the stage in the Bloom Wellness and Events Center in three commencement ceremonies. The 2025 master’s and doctoral class exemplifies the institution’s commitment to research and scholarship across a diverse range of disciplines.

A bolt bounced off the floor and echoed throughout the makeshift construction zone erected in NJIT's Central King Building. The former theater hall has been repurposed into an engineering playpen, and sitting front-and-center is a 20-foot long bridge — and a cadre of frenetic undergraduates racing against a stopwatch to finish the build.

"That's a deduction," said Thomas Hickey, the faculty advisor and former two-time student captain holding a stopwatch and click counter. A few more bolts wandered away from the bridge. A couple more clicks of the counter.

Every year, NJIT’s detachment of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps graduates several successful cadets into the military officer ranks. Three members of the Class of 2025 spoke about their backgrounds that led them to the program, experiences during their time as Highlanders and future plans.

The young men who will soon receive their commissions as second lieutenants are Fredy Aleman Jr., a computer engineering major from Elizabeth; Irvin Hoyos, an architecture major from Paterson; and Michael Ruzzi, an industrial engineering major from Trenton.

Fibroblasts are the body’s building blocks. Among the most abundant human cells, they help form the structure of organs and tissues and hold them together. They are also its repair crew. After an injury, they migrate to the damaged area, cover it with collagen and exert strong forces that bring the edges of the wound together, closing it up.

But these repairs can go awry if their force is not moderated.

New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Aliza Mujahid, a senior biomedical engineering student, along with mechanical engineering Ph.D. student and research assistant Mohammad Jafari, reached the final round-of-eight in the 2025 U.S. Hult Prize competition for social-minded startup founders.

The duo, with Assistant Professor Farid Alisafaei and colleagues at Washington University, represent a new company called DermaMech that aims to better understand the science of human skin grafting and develop technology that will reduce infections, rejections and scarring.

NJIT’s Dana Knox Research Showcase returned in 2025 to once again highlight the innovative and impactful work of students across disciplines. The event celebrated undergraduate and graduate researchers tackling real-world challenges with creative, technical solutions.

Now in its 20th year, the showcase was also its largest — over 150 presentations by 200+ students spanned all six of NJIT’s colleges.

A robotic alarm clock that hides from you, so you have to get out of bed anyway if you wish to silence it, was the star Highlander entry in the spring 2025 edition of the MakeNJIT hardware hackathon.

The clockmakers earned third place overall among 47 teams from several universities. Members of Team Daniel knew that many tinkerers have built such devices, but they designed their own version just for the fun and education of it.

Seeing her father struggle through rehabilitation exercises after a stroke made Marina Samuel '25 think, why can’t therapy be more personalized, effective and efficient for the patient?

So, with a central focus on patients, she pursued a bachelor’s in biomedical engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology and after graduation in May, will seek a Ph.D. in the same discipline at NJIT. Her research as an undergraduate fueled this pursuit.

The 36th Annual Scholarship Brunch at New Jersey Institute of Technology celebrated a significant milestone this year, welcoming its largest gathering of students and benefactors to date. Donors from across the region and as far away as Sweden convened, united by a shared commitment to empowering the next generation of leaders and innovators at NJIT.