Zambia, a country in south-central Africa, is rich in natural resources but significantly lacking in technological and educational resources. This has made it difficult for the country to boost economic development, alleviate poverty and improve quality of life. Enter Keith Williams, NJIT university lecturer in informatics, who is helping the Zambian government build the nation’s IT infrastructure from the ground up — setting up and delivering technological education at local universities as well as reengineering the government online. William’s connection with Africa started in the…

Studying the evolution and function of online shopping communities could teach computer science researchers about online community-making in general, experts at NJIT said in a series of recent papers.  The papers cover the methods and motivations of how shoppers interact with each other online, and examine such communities depend on members’ participation and contributions, according to doctoral student Yu Xu and Assistant Professor Michael Lee, both of the informatics department of the Ying Wu College of Computing. Until now, Xu explained, most research about online shopping was…

A new plan to recruit and retain more women as computer science majors is beginning in earnest this summer at NJIT's Ying Wu College of Computing. Similar efforts have been underway for five years, said James Geller, a professor and associate dean for research. But the push has a new tailwind in the form of a $520,000 grant from Northeastern University’s Center for Inclusive Computing (CIC) which is also funding Columbia University, Colorado State University, Rutgers University and the University of Minnesota, in its first round of funding to help schools create gender equality in…

Informatics department Assistant Professor Hai Phan is studying how to protect privacy in mobile applications that track a user's behavior. Phan received a $100,000 grant from a major technology company for the project, Detecting Human Behaviors from Smartphones Using Federated Machine Learning in the Wild. For example, he said, developers of applications that book taxi services or provide pizza delivery might want to use algorithms to determine optimal driver locations and times. To do so, applications need to track device owners' movements and activities to learn when you're mostly like…

The healthcare process of identifying who traveled close to contagious patients, known as contact tracing, typically assumes a lack of privacy — but NJIT cybersecurity expert Kurt Rohloff said his software is a good match to fix this. Rohloff is known in the computer security field for his work in homomorphic encryption, which is a method of processing private information without decrypting it or exposing the sensitive parts. The method has roots in defense and intelligence applications, but is also useful for healthcare and the COVID-19 pandemic, he observed, in a recent United Nations…

Chris Wiggins, chief data scientist at The New York Times, presented on his field Feb. 25 at the Jersey City branch of the Ying Wu College of Computing. Technology is important, but to be a good data scientist it's more important to understand communications skills, explained Wiggins, who holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics and joined the Times in 2014 on sabbatical from his applied mathematics professorship at Columbia University. "There are extra pains associated with trying to take a real-world problem, reframe it as machine learning, execute the machine learning and then…

As a major in architecture or any other field, you absolutely must learn computer programming and other high technology to be a compelling job applicant in the 2020s, implored Sarah Almukhtar, a Hiller College of Architecture and Design alumna ('10, B.Arch.) who spoke here last night about her data visualization work for The New York Times. Almukhtar worked at New York-based Heritage Architecture for two years after graduating from NJIT, discovered her preference for big-picture designs rather than individual buildings and so pursued an M.S. in urban planning from Columbia University where…

Leaders of NJIT's esports team, which is among the most successful collegiate videogame groups in the region and one of the top programs nationwide at games such as Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch, said they see the next few years as a time of critical evolution for their two-year-old club and for their field overall. Their goal mirrors that of college esports teams everywhere — to be accepted on equal standing with traditional sporting programs such as basketball and football. It's not unrealistic, they say, noting that many universities especially on the west coast already provide…

New Jersey Institute of Technology is one of the nation’s best colleges for students seeking a superb education with great career preparation and at an affordable price, according to The Princeton Review®. The education services company profiles NJIT in the recently published 2020 edition of its annual guide, The Best Value Colleges. In order to make the list, institutions must demonstrate a stellar academic program and affordability, and offer strong opportunities for career prospects after graduation. A return on an academic investment is a highly sought-after quality. “An NJIT…

Experts in artificial intelligence from the Ying Wu College of Computing will highlight how their work solves real-world problems at a prestigious meeting in New York next week. The professors — Chaoran Cheng, Jing Li, Zhi Wei and Pan Xu — will share their session stages with researchers from IBM, Facebook, Yahoo and other prominent organizations for audiences at the 34th annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. "Today, artificial intelligence is great at learning patterns, such as making movie recommendations and identifying friends in our…