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This spring, NJIT’s 2018 College of Science and Liberal Arts Awards honored an exclusive group of its undergraduate and graduate seniors with the CSLA Outstanding Student Award — a distinction annually given to students who have demonstrated the highest level of excellence in their field.

For some, the work of a professional “death investigator” might sound like something straight out of “Law & Order” and “CSI.” However, for Carly Berdan ’18, that job will soon be a very real career.

The competition for scholarships and fellowships grows fiercer every year. Still, there’s good news: At NJIT, students are increasingly receiving notable awards that provide opportunities to do research, study abroad (both, in certain cases) and more. Just as the spring 2018 semester was coming to a close, a small reception was held in Eberhardt Hall to congratulate the university’s scholarship and fellowship recipients over the past year. While some have completed their assignments, others are either in the midst of or preparing for them.

Harpuneet Kaur is all smiles on a Friday afternoon as she seats herself at a table in the main communal area of The Henry J. and Erna D. Leir Research Institute for Business, Technology, and Society, on the NJIT campus. The Martin Tuchman School of Management (MTSM) finance major is happy to have her exams behind her and the MTSM awards ceremony and NJIT commencement just ahead. Her parents have arrived from India to attend the festivities and with a full-time position awaiting her at IEX, the Investors Exchange, life is good.

It was about five minutes after Robert Dresnack’s Water Resources Engineering class had begun when a septuagenarian poked his head into the room. Puzzled, the professor inquired, “May I help you?” In fact, he could. “I’m a student in this class,” replied Chris Antholis, then 72, who was six years into his quest to earn a Bachelor of Science in civil and environmental engineering. The required course, on the increasingly urgent topic of water supply planning, had not yet been scratched off his list. He quickly took a seat at an empty desk.

Three NJIT Athletic programs were recognized in the 2018 NCAA Division I Academic Performance Program for ranking in the top 10 percent for Academic Progress Rate (APR) in their respective sport announced on Wednesday. The NJIT men's cross country, men's volleyball and women's volleyball programs all had scores in the top 10 percent of their respective sport. Each team's multi-year rates were 1,000 each.

NJIT clinched a spot in the 2018 ASUN Conference Tournament with a doubleheader sweep, 3-1 and 7-1, over visiting North Florida Thursday afternoon in ASUN Conference action at Jim Hynes '63 Stadium on the campus of Kean University. With Thursday's sweep over the Ospreys, NJIT will make the programs first ASUN Conference postseason appearance since joining the league in 2015-16. NJIT evens its overall record to 22-22 and moves into fourth place in the ASUN standings with a record of 9-11. North Florida drops to 25-26 overall, 9-11 in the league.

From spending her very early childhood on the island nation of Sri Lanka to moving at the tender age of 8 to the suburbs of New Jersey, Chithma Gunawardana has indeed experienced dramatic change in her life. She has also realized significant achievement: Gunawardana taught herself how to read and write English and is now a college sophomore.

Following its 102nd commencement ceremony May 16 at the Prudential Center in Newark, which recognized undergraduate and doctoral students, NJIT continued the festivities at its new Wellness and Events Center (WEC) yesterday and today. There, the university conferred degrees to master’s students from all five academic schools. The occasions marked not only an educational milestone for the graduates, but also the first time commencement was held at the WEC.

Eight years ago, while working as a business development manager for diagnostic testing company CGC Genetics in his native country of Portugal, Rogerio Henriques ’15 was sent to the U.S. for an assignment that happened to be based in the Enterprise Development Center (EDC) at NJIT. It was then that he began researching MBA programs and learned the advanced management degree at the university’s Martin Tuchman School of Management (MTSM) focused strongly on technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.