Newark college engineering

The latest graduate studies rankings from U.S. News & World Report highlight the national standing of New Jersey Institute of Technology in the fields of engineering, computer science and now business.

NJIT’s Newark College of Engineering (NCE) ranks No. 85 on the publication’s list of the Best Engineering Schools in the U.S. — the tenth consecutive year the NCE has made the top 100.

Soldiers training on heavy artillery and athletes in contact sports are routinely exposed to repetitive mild shockwaves and injuries. Unlike someone who has just dodged a missile explosion or been smacked by a linebacker, they may feel little immediate impact.

The cumulative effects of these low-level blasts can, however, cause neurological problems such as sleep disorders and attention deficits, noted Bryan Pfister, director of New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials and Medicine.

Goldwater Scholarships, among the most prestigious awards for undergraduate students pursuing STEM degrees, are going to two juniors at NJIT. 

The recipients are: Dev Doshi, a biomedical engineering major in the Newark College of Engineering; and Brock Shahinian, an environmental science major in the Jordan Hu College of Science and Liberal Arts.

Threaded throughout the body are networks of capillaries so miniscule that red blood cells must contort to squeeze through them one at a time. It is this world that Peter Balogh brings to dynamic, 3D life on computer screens.

Elisa Kallioniemi slides a circular disk over her head, stops above her right ear and clicks. Her left hand jumps. She moves it a couple of inches back, clicks again, and is suddenly speechless, mid-sentence. With a single pulse of electromagnetic energy, her device can activate or inhibit the brain’s major command centers.

What she is now trying to determine is whether multiple pulses in the motor cortex can produce longer-term therapeutic results by retraining neural circuits. Her first focus is people who have lost some control of their limbs following a stroke.

As most students were buried in final exams last December, Iniobong Ofonime took an extra assignment outside her usual work as an engineering student — rather than applying mathematics to solve problems, she decided to profile an inspirational mathematician.

Her efforts have added up to a first-place finish among undergraduates in the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) national essay competition, announced fittingly on International Women's Day.

The NJIT Rocketry Club is experimenting with a model that autonomously lands itself standing up, a la SpaceX, but accomplished through novel methods.

SpaceX rockets fire their liquid fuel thrusters while descending. Other hobbyists have already tried to duplicate that method, so the Highlanders devised a unique approach: next year, they want to make the nose cone of their Project Lotus rocket unfold like flower petals, revealing a drone that takes control.

A keynote speaker at NJIT’s Women Designing the Future conference explained the imperative for holistic approaches to climate change policy, while another shared her tale of breaking through glass ceilings to develop innovative artificial intelligence software.

The speakers — Rhiana Gunn-Wright, who orchestrated behind-the-scenes policymaking for the 2019 Green New Deal, and Danielle Feinberg, visual effects supervisor at Pixar — were on campus March 7 to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of the NJIT Murray Center for Women in Technology, and also for Women’s History Month.

The spirit of innovation and hands-on learning was in full force at the Newark College of Engineering's (NCE) annual First-Year Engineering Design Showcase, a highlight of National Engineers Week. This popular event, a testament to NJIT's commitment to early-stage practical engineering experience, saw NCE’s brightest first-year minds — 180 presenters on 51 teams — show their innovative projects.

NJIT’s Albert Dorman Honors College held its First-Year Seminar Biodiversity Initiatives colloquium, in which six student-led proposals were presented to increase and sustain biodiversity through a campus planting. This year’s plan focused around a renovation near Faculty Memorial Hall. 

These student-driven initiatives allow for the Urban Ecology Lab (UEL), ADHC, the Real Estate Development and Capital Operations (REDCO) and the Office of Sustainability to team up together to make NJIT’s campus into a more sustainable and biodiverse community.