This month, NJIT’s forensic science program welcomed David Fisher — an expert criminalist previously with New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) — to its faculty ranks. The announcement sees Fisher appointed as the university’s first-ever “Professor of Practice in Forensic Science” — a position expected to play a leading role in educating the program’s students in current lab techniques and crime scene investigation methods used by active forensic science professionals today. A specialist in forensic biology, Fisher has provided over 40 testimonies as an expert witness in…

Acclaimed musician and NJIT Distinguished Professor of Humanities, David Rothenberg, has recently been named a 2019 Fellow by the Safina Center for his career contributions in the fields of philosophy, art and conservation science. The Safina Center — founded by writer and environmentalist Carl Safina — aims to promote a wide-ranging cultural and scientific approach to pressing ecological issues, and “create a body of scientific and creative works that advance the conservation of wildlife and the environment, and give a voice to nature.” As part of its mission, the organization awards $…

When Parsippany High School’s Kathy Effner heard about NJIT’s Center for Pre-College Programs’ (CPCP) Try Engineering! workshop for educators, she was intrigued — particularly since it featured a hands-on project at the university’s new 10,000-square-foot Makerspace. This past October she attended that event and, along with middle and high school instructors from throughout New Jersey, learned practical applications of engineering concepts before visiting the high-tech facility. There, huddled in small groups, they all had the opportunity to use 3D printers to create keychains from a design…

This year, NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts has announced it will offer students a unique baccalaureate degree option in the emerging field of cyberpsychology. The new program — exploring the dynamics between modern technology and human psychology — is the first of its kind in New Jersey, and is the first academic program in the behavioral sciences to be offered at NJIT. The 120-credit degree option, now available for enrollment through the college’s Science, Technology and Society B.S. degree program, involves a combination of traditional coursework in psychology, and study…

A new research collaboration between New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Louisiana State University (LSU) and University of Florida is set to launch the first evolutionary study of the unique pelvic structure and walking mechanics of blind cavefish (Cryptotora thamicola) — the only living species of fish known capable of walking on land similarly to four-limbed mammal and amphibian vertebrates, or tetrapods. The National Science Foundation has announced the project, titled “A Phylogenomically-Based Bioinspired Robotic Model Approach to Addressing the Evolution of Terrestrial…

Bats and dolphins emit sound waves to sense their surroundings; like a battery, electric fish generate electricity to help them detect motion while burrowed in their refuges; and humans use tiny movements of the eyes to perceive objects in their field of vision.  Each is an example of “active sensing” — a process found across the animal kingdom, which involves the production of motion, sound or other signals to gather sensory feedback about the external environment. Until now, however, researchers have struggled to understand how the brain controls active sensing, partly due to how…

When the West Nile virus (WNV) was initially isolated in two patients at a Queens, N.Y., hospital in the summer of 1999, it would have been hard to anticipate how quickly one common species of house mosquito, Culex pipiens, would help begin to spread the virus throughout the western hemisphere. Bite-by-bite, coast-to-coast, mosquito populations would transmit the virus — originally discovered in the West Nile province of Uganda more than 75 years ago — to human populations in 44 U.S. states in just three years. With more than 2,500 different species of mosquitoes known on Earth today, many…

Both on land and in space, Earth’s technology-centered civilization is increasingly vulnerable to the powerful bursts of electromagnetic radiation, energetic charged particles and magnetized plasma known as space weather. As the complexity of engineered systems increases, as new technologies are invented and deployed, and as humans venture ever further beyond Earth’s surface, both human-built systems and humans themselves become more susceptible to the effects of the planet’s space environment. It is with these vulnerabilities in mind – and in response to urgent calls from government…

In August, more than 700 teams comprised of statisticians, programmers, engineers and students from across North America applied to enter this year’s “2018 NBA Hackathon” — a data-driven competition to “build tools that solve important and challenging problems in the NBA.” It was then that a team of three mathematics students from NJIT applied for and earned distinguished selection into the contest’s final 20-team field, scheduled to compete at the NBA headquarters in Secaucus, NJ this past fall. By the end of the grueling 12-hour event, “Team NJIT’s” Raiha Khan ’19H, Bayan Mafarjeh ’…