Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept. Ranked #9 in Nation
New Jersey Institute of Technology is now ranked No. 9 in the country for its department of electrical and computer engineering, according to a U.S. News & World Report study of 2,165 universities worldwide.
NJIT's top-ten result in the U.S. section of the global ranking is a point of pride for Professor Durga Misra, department chairman since 2021. Misra joined the university in 1988 and said he is most proud of the department's research collaboration and student engagement.
Misra's own research involves transistors and how to stop them from leaking electricity. It becomes more difficult and more important with every new generation of integrated circuits. Other faculty and graduate students in the department work on artificial intelligence for mobile devices, data management for huge information sets, mixed reality in sports coaching and rehabilitation, robotics to develop intelligent hands, and security in quantum computing.
A student, Andressa Marangon, won a scholarship from the IEEE Electron Devices Society for reducing electron leakage in LEDs while recent alumnus Suraj Ghumwala commissioned into the U.S. Space Force to work on satellite maintenance.
A major goal for the ECE department, housed within Newark College of Engineering, is to enroll more women. Misra and his team established events that invite high school girls to the Newark campus. Beyond his department role, Misra personally works to increase minority enrollment in graduate-level programs through NJIT's McNair Achievement Program.
In addition, Misra said he'd like to see increased research funding, the creation of student advisory boards, more involvement from industry advisors and collaborating with other local universities, Misra stated.
He also would like to update the curriculum by merging lectures and laboratories in more courses, offering more instruction in artificial intelligence, increasing learning opportunities for robotics and possibly creating a new track for neuromorphic computing architecture. Plans are in the works for a hardware hackathon, contrasting to the annual HackNJIT event, sponsored by NJIT's Ying Wu College of Computing, which tends to focus on software.
"We are very proud of the outstanding programs, great faculty and student accomplishments in the ECE department that have brought national and international recognition to NJIT," said university Interim Provost Atam Dhawan, himself a distinguished professor in the department. "It is wonderful to be in the top ten in the U.S. section of the global ranking."
