NJBIZ Recognizes 3 from NJIT as Healthcare Heroes
NJBIZ recognized two professors from New Jersey Institute of Technology and a division of the university’s New Jersey Innovation Institute in its latest lists of Healthcare Heroes.
The annual recognition salutes excellence, innovation and individuals who are “making a significant impact on the quality of health care in New Jersey,” NJBIZ noted in a story about this year’s honorees.
The Highlanders were honored in three different categories. Here’s a closer look at each.
Education Hero — Individual
Assistant Professor Saikat Pal
Pal is director of the Life Sciences Motion Capture Lab, a 1,900-square-foot space that uses monitoring and recording equipment to measure the gait of children with cerebral palsy, test robotic exoskeletons used by military veterans with spinal cord injuries and quantify the limits of human performance. Facilitating it all is a 16-camera motion capture system, an instrumented treadmill, an instrumented overground walkway and a host of wearable sensors. Big picture, Pal, who’s also director of the Computational Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation Engineering Lab, is training the next generation of students in the study of human movement, musculoskeletal disorders, sports performance and robotic technology to improve the mobility of persons with disabilities.
Innovation Hero — Individual
Distinguished Professor Tara Alvarez
Alvarez applies her expertise in biomedical engineering to develop instruments that detect and treat an eye motor disorder known as convergence insufficiency (CI), in which the muscles that control eye movements do not coordinate to focus on near objects. Because each eye sees images separately, someone with the disorder experiences double and blurred vision, headaches and difficulty concentrating. The impact on cognition and learning can be severe, particularly in children. In addition, Alvarez and a colleague, backed by a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, are using virtual eye rotation vision exercises to study CI in veterans with traumatic brain injury, as the disorder also is a symptom of concussion. In December, Alvarez was named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, joining a select group of 12 at NJIT.
Medical Technology Pioneer
The Healthcare Division of New Jersey Innovation Institute
NJII, a corporation of NJIT, manages the New Jersey Health Information Network (NJHIN) on behalf of the N.J. Department of Health, enabling the electronic exchange of patient health information among trusted data sources across the state. NJHIN helps reduce medical errors, improve data quality, increase efficiency and improve outcomes for patients. All the hospitals, long-term care, assisted living and federally-qualified health centers in N.J. utilize the NJHIN, along with more than 20,000 health care providers. The division’s efforts, led by Senior Vice President and General Manager Jennifer D'Angelo, exemplify NJIT's aim to be a leader in digital transformation.
