Valeria Barra charted an unusual course from Siena, Italy to Newark, New Jersey and now onward for an internship program in Emeryville, Calif. at a one-time Steve Jobs startup you may have heard of - Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar has won eight Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature—“Inside Out,” “Brave,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” “WALL-E,” “Up” and “Toy Story 3” have all taken home an Oscar.​​ While the allure of gold statues may be strong, what inspired Barra from an early age was the innate draw of pure math. “What I like the most about math is that you can…

Associate Professor Eric Fortune, a member of the Department of Biological Sciences since 2012, is an explorer whose research is focused on finding answers to questions at the frontiers of human physiology and behavior. In his Central King Building laboratory, with the assistance of undergraduate and graduate students, Fortune is challenging the unknowns of how the brain uses sensory information to control behavior. It’s a search that has also taken him far from the NJIT campus, to wilderness locations in South America. Fortune’s work, which could yield new insights into neurological…

As a researcher, Kevin Belfield is working at the forefront of medical innovation to develop a minimally invasive imaging technique that could revolutionize how wound healing and the growth of cancerous tissue are monitored. A professor in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science, Belfield is also dean of the College of Science and Liberal Arts (CSLA), and in this role he is helping to build the success of programs that span a very broad spectrum of research and education at NJIT. Belfield came to NJIT in 2014 from the University of Central Florida, where he chaired the…

Land lies in water; it is shadowed green. Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges where weeds hang to the simple blue from green. Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under, drawing it unperturbed around itself? Along the fine tan sandy shelf is the land tugging at the sea from under? — From “The Map” by Elizabeth Bishop In New Jersey, as in many other places on the globe with extensive coastlines, the complex interaction of natural forces and human activity has a profound effect on the quality of life. At a very basic level, for…

Since coming to NJIT in 1994, Professor Eliza Michalopoulou has been listening to the world’s oceans, researching how new knowledge about sound propagation in the marine environment can enhance the U.S. Navy’s antisubmarine defenses. But the analytical tools she uses have other applications as well, including the potential to yield greater understanding of oceanic pollution patterns and climate change. A Good Match Michalopoulou is an engineer, specifically an electrical engineer, with an appointment in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. The focus of her computationally intensive…

Mercury: We know that substantial amounts of this highly toxic element are released into the atmosphere through the burning of coal and petroleum for fuel and the incineration of our civilization’s garbage. We also know that mercury entering the atmosphere can eventually find its way into the soil and, especially, the world’s oceans, where it poses a threat to health by accumulating in many species of fish that we eat. But the chemical transformation of mercury released by combustion that takes place in the atmosphere as a precursor to dangerous contamination of soil and water is not clearly…

It’s not everyday you find a course that dissects the symbolism of hair—at a technology university, no less. But twice a week at NJIT, on the third floor of the Central King Building, adjunct professor Patti O’Brien-Richardson teaches “HAIR: Culture, Politics and Technology,” a senior seminar offered by the humanities department in the College of Science & Liberal Arts. “What we have at NJIT is a true America,” says O’Brien-Richardson, who is a third-year doctoral candidate in the Joint Ph.D. Program in Urban Systems, and developed the course with NJIT architecture professor Karen A.…

  Buildings and Meanings — Interpreting Cultural Expression in Architecture Distinguished Professor Zeynep Çelik is an internationally honored interpreter — of buildings. Çelik, who has a joint appointment in NJIT’s New Jersey School of Architecture and the Department of History, is an architectural historian whose career has been dedicated to interpreting the meanings buildings communicate about the cultures that create them. Çelik joined NJIT in 1991, following a professional path that began at Istanbul Technical University in Turkey, where she earned a degree in architecture.…