Department of Biomedical Engineering

Two NJIT Students Earn Goldwater Scholarships

Friday, April 4, 2025
Goldwater Scholarships, among the most prestigious awards for undergraduate students pursuing STEM degrees, are going to two juniors at NJIT.  The recipients are: Dev Doshi, a biomedical engineering major in the Newark College of Engineering; and Brock Shahinian, an environmental science major in the Jordan Hu College of Science and Liberal Arts. The NJIT Goldwater Scholars represent two of 11 statewide, and 441 total across the United States. They were selected from an estimated pool of over 5,000 college sophomores and juniors nominated by 445 academic institutions. This is the...

Restoring Muscles by Stimulating the Brain

Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Elisa Kallioniemi slides a circular disk over her head, stops above her right ear and clicks. Her left hand jumps. She moves it a couple of inches back, clicks again, and is suddenly speechless, mid-sentence. With a single pulse of electromagnetic energy, her device can activate or inhibit the brain’s major command centers. What she is now trying to determine is whether multiple pulses in the motor cortex can produce longer-term therapeutic results by retraining neural circuits. Her first focus is people who have lost some control of their limbs following a stroke. “We know from...

NJIT's First-Year Engineers 'Dive' into Design, Shaping the Future at Annual Showcase

Tuesday, March 11, 2025
The spirit of innovation and hands-on learning was in full force at the Newark College of Engineering's (NCE) annual First-Year Engineering Design Showcase, a highlight of National Engineers Week. This popular event, a testament to NJIT's commitment to early-stage practical engineering experience, saw NCE’s brightest first-year minds — 180 presenters on 51 teams — show their innovative projects. NCE Dean Moshe Kam emphasized the distinctive approach NJIT takes in introducing design to its students. "The significance of this event is that it takes first-year students and puts them in the...

Two NJIT Faculty Elected as National Academy of Inventors Senior Members

Thursday, February 20, 2025
New Jersey Institute of Technology Professors Vivek Kumar and Xuan Liu have been named as Senior Members in the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) 2025 class. They join 162 emerging academic inventors from 64 NAI Member Institutions across the nation recognized for their outstanding contributions to innovation. Kumar, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and Liu, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, are part of the largest class to date, collectively holding over 1,200 U.S. patents. “We are incredibly proud to have Professors Kumar and Liu join the...

NJIT's Grace Hopper AI Research Institute Launches with $1 Million in Research Proposals

Monday, February 17, 2025
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has taken a significant step in its commitment to advancing artificial intelligence by establishing the Grace Hopper AI Research Institute (GHRI). The institute is a key component of NJIT's $10 million AI Initiative aimed at enhancing the university's capabilities in AI research and applications. In its inaugural call for research proposals, GHRI received more than $1 million in funding requests. These proposals span a diverse range of departments and fields, including engineering, computer science, mathematics and university operations. This...

NJIT Engineer Tara Alvarez Wins First Place in an International Patent Competition

Friday, January 31, 2025
Tara Alvarez, a distinguished professor of biomedical engineering at NJIT, won first place in the inaugural Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University (PMU) / National Academy of Inventors (NAI) International Patent Award competition. Her patented technology, branded as VERVE (Virtual Eye Rotation Vision Exercises), is a virtual reality game to correct an eye motor disorder called convergence insufficiency, in which the muscles that control eye movements do not coordinate to focus on near objects, to see them singly and clearly. Because each eye sees images separately, the person...

Fulbright Scholar Anna Maria DiBrita Shares Her NJIT STEM Knowledge with Spain's Future

Thursday, January 9, 2025
Anna Maria DiBrita ’24 didn’t quite have the time to study abroad during her time pursuing her degree in biomedical engineering. The Albert Dorman Honors Scholar kept a full plate on campus — member of the Society of Female Engineers, ambassadorships for biomedical engineering and the Honors College, Orientation Fellow among others. But now, DiBrita has earned a Fulbright scholarship and is an English teaching assistant in Spain’s Canary Islands. Her mornings begin with a bus ride to her school in Telde. DiBrita assists and supports the students learning English. She’s there Mondays...

A Pioneer in Brain Imaging Wins NJIT's 2024 Excellence in Research Award

Wednesday, December 18, 2024
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...

This Year NJIT Has the Most Governor's STEM Scholars at the College Level

Monday, December 16, 2024
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...

Mending the Mind After a Spinal Cord Injury

Thursday, November 21, 2024
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...

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