Volleyball has enabled NJIT’s Mason-William Matos to represent the Dominican Republic, see the world and express himself with joy. As a teenager, he played on Dominican Republic national teams, making him a seasoned setter for the Highlanders when he arrived in 2019. Four years later, the mathematical sciences major from the Class of 2023 is poised to join BNY Mellon in New York as a risk and compliance analyst. Internships, Matos said, were essential to getting to this point, as were some core classes and the advice of a helpful professor. And yes, the thrill of athletic competition. In an…

Constance Chu’s passion for interior design started at a young age, assisting her mother — an interior designer — in picking samples and colors. Thanks to this early exposure, Chu trained a design muscle that has evolved into an education and career. “That's just kind of always been what I've been surrounded by,” said the interior design senior and Albert Dorman scholar. “It instilled in me a sort of eye for design that I've been training over the years like picking out details in spaces that maybe other people don't see, and really understanding what that does to space.  “I’ve been…

New Jersey Institute of Technology will award more than 3,500 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at its 107th commencement across two days of celebration. The university also will award three honorary degrees and welcome guest speakers. Visit https://commencement.njit.edu/ for all the details. Undergraduate Ceremony WHEN: Friday, May 19 at 9 a.m. (Doors open at 7:30 a.m.) WHERE: Prudential Center, 25 Lafayette St., Newark  KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Kim Hanemann, president and chief operating officer of PSE&G. Before ascending to COO in January 2020, she held numerous…

During her four years at NJIT, Haylee Merola has used her imagination and visualization to create different types of work in her interior design studios. Whether the project was a sci-fi movie, a retail store, an airport lounge or designing clothing for a fashion show, Merola always made sure to add her style. “I think I'm definitely one of those students that each one of her projects looks different,” said the interior design senior. “Everything I do is really catered to the purpose of the project, I won't force anything, just to make it fit. So all my projects end up looking really…

Gabriel Arcanjo's NJIT journey took him full-circle, from attending a Saturday game development program as a high school student to teaching in the same program as a college senior. Arcanjo graduates in the Class of 2023 with a B.S. in information technology and starts his career as an application developer for ADP, a giant in the payroll software industry and prominent sponsor of NJIT career fairs and hackathon events. Highlander life began for him at age 17, when a friend at Kearny High School became a student in the Real World Connections program that lets Ying Wu College of Computing…

A marquee event during Inauguration Week was the Scholarship Reception and Networking event, which invites generous benefactors who have created scholarships at the university to engage directly with the student beneficiaries at a celebratory luncheon. The event humanizes and demonstrates the impact of giving back and removing a financial burden to those who may need it most, as President Teik C. Lim told his own story of how a scholarship changed his, and subsequently his family’s life. “Being part of the Highlander nation means being part of a support system. And a scholarship is a…

Some of NJIT’s brightest up-and-coming researchers grabbed center stage on campus at the Dana Knox Student Research Showcase, a springtime tradition that continues to highlight student ingenuity and diverse research accomplishments across the university’s six colleges. For participants of the 18th annual research competition, it was a special opportunity to connect with the campus community by discussing their recent discoveries and innovations, most of which have been years in the making. “The Dana Knox Student Research Showcase provides us with an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the…

Information technology student Sam Itman has long believed that knowledge and passion for technology can open doors as “it presents a world of opportunities to those who are willing to discover them.” For Itman, these opportunities have led to an impactful internship at Optum and a cybersecurity position with the federal government. Itman is a dean’s list student in NJIT’s Ying Wu College of Computing and member of the National Science Foundation’s CyberCorps Scholarship for Service program, part of the NJIT Secure Computing Initiative. The competitive scholarship program provides him the…