At New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), students always have had the option to apply for prestigious fellowships and awards, but the university has taken things to a new level over the last two years with 23 recipients of Fulbright, Goldwater, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Boren, Gilman, and other nationally competitive fellowships and scholarships. This year alone, 15 NJIT students have received these awards, putting NJIT on par with some of the most prestigious universities in the nation.
Over the past four years, the selection of NJIT students for highly competitive honors has progressed into a steady stream of accolades that set NJIT apart from most universities. While many of the NJIT students winning these awards are members of the university’s Albert Dorman Honors College, they are also transfer students and members of the Educational Opportunity Program.
As a result of increased support for student applications, NJIT’s prestigious fellowships and awards have grown substantially. For all years prior to 2018, there were 28 total prestigious fellowship recipients from NJIT. In the past four years, NJIT students have won 39 such awards.
In 2020, NJIT’s four Goldwater Scholars doubled the previous year’s total and were the most from any college or university in New Jersey, and second-most across the nation. In 2021, NJIT broke three of its Fulbright Scholarship records by submitting 11 applications, achieving six semifinalists (with a Fulbright Canada scholarship semifinalist making seven from NJIT), and having two winners. In 2019, NJIT students, for the first time, won both a Boren Scholarship and a Goldwater Scholarship in the same year. In 2022, NJIT received three NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, four Gilman scholarships and three Boren awards, equalling in one year the number of Boren awardees from all prior years.
The link between a growing number of student awardees and the upward rise of NJIT is part of a larger trajectory of success. During the past 10 years, NJIT has earned several institutional-level recognitions, including being named an R1 (most elite) Carnegie Classification research university, a designation shared by only 106 other public universities and three total universities in New Jersey. NJIT’s research expenditures have jumped over 50% since 2014 to more than $155 million annually. NJIT has risen to the No. 33 Best Value College in The Princeton Review rankings and is ranked among the top 50 public national universities by U.S. News & World Report.
For the 2021-2022 prestigious fellowship and award winner class, NJIT students submitted 53 applications and received 15 prestigious scholarships and fellowships, nearly doubling the previous year’s notable success. Recipients during the past two years include the following, with international destinations noted in parentheses:
Boren Scholarship
Hannah Benjamin - Human-Computer Interaction, Taiwan
Samuel Carlos - Computer Science, Mathematics, and History, Taiwan
Akhilesh Kootala - Mechanical Engineering, Latvia
Zachary Lane - History, Jordan
Shahil Patel - Biomedical Engineering, India
Fulbright Grant
Kaylin Wittmeyer - Digital Design, Canada
Fulbright-MITACS Scholarship
Joseph Torsiello - Mathematics and Physics, Canada
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Research Internship in Science and Engineering
Akhilesh Kootala - Mechanical Engineering
Meredith Westrich - Computer Science
Gilman Award
Micaela Quisbert Mendoza - Industrial Engineering, South Korea
Destiny Adeleye - Law, Technology & Culture, South Korea
Kiaja Jones - Law, Technology & Culture, South Korea
Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship
Abdul-Rahman Azizogli - Biology
Sreya Sanyal - Biology and History
Simone Bishara - Biochemistry
Vishva Rana - Mechanical Engineering
National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Training Award
Sreya Sanyal - Biology and History
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
Daniela Bushiri - Chemical Engineering
Philip Zaleski (HM) - Mathematics
Gabriela De Carvalho - Biomedical Engineering
Ayushi Sangoi - Biomedical Engineering
Jehan Shalabi - Electrical Engineering
