Newark College of Engineering

Bharat Biswal, a pioneer in the field of neural imaging who developed a technique that sheds new light on brain-related diseases and injuries, is this year’s winner of NJIT’s Excellence in Research award. In the early 1990s, as scientists began mapping the brain with functional MRI (fMRI), Biswal proposed a radical new approach to imaging: observing all of the regional networks at once while the patient sat still for several minutes. “At the time, it was perceived as a crazy idea in neuroscience, which was focused on task and response,” recalled Biswal, then a graduate student at...

Five of this year’s Governor’s STEM Scholars are from New Jersey Institute of Technology — the most from any college in the state and the university’s highest total in a single year. The Highlanders are among a select cohort of 16 college-level scholars and a larger pool of 111 that includes high school students interested in STEM. Each college scholar plays a leadership role, sharing expertise and offering guidance to a group of about a half-dozen high schoolers as they tackle global problems at a local level. “These exceptional Highlanders have the knowledge, experience and skills...

Brian Kiernan ’70, a visionary in wireless communication technology and a proud alumnus of Newark College of Engineering at NJIT, has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). This honor recognizes his pioneering contributions to mobile and fixed wireless communications, a field he revolutionized through innovations that underpin technologies used by billions globally. NAI Fellowship represents the highest professional distinction for inventors, awarded to those whose work has significantly advanced societal and economic development. Kiernan joins a prestigious class...

A quadriplegic for the past 11 years, Julissa Santiago is the master of her own comfort. With the precision of a polite drill sergeant, she delivers instructions at bedtime for a series of minute body shifts and covers placed just so. And yet she still struggles to sleep. “If I sleep for five hours, I’m lucky. My brain is constantly going, and it drains me,” she says. In her wheelchair during the day, she occasionally experiences a sudden drop in blood pressure that is mentally discombobulating in its own way. These disruptions are deeply frustrating for the observant 35-year-old who soaks...