Dr. I. Jy (Steven) Chien, Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering has been selected as the very first recipient of the 2008 New Jersey Department of Transportation Research Implementation Award for his project, Computer Modeling and Simulation of NJ Signalized Highways (Volumes 1 and 2). The award was presented on October 16th at the 10th Annual NJDOT Research Showcase hosted by Rutgers University at the Conference Center at Mercer.

Congratulations to Drs. Atam Dhawan, Taha Marhaba, and John Carpinelli, on their recent promotions!

Dr. Ali Abdi, Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering will receive the 2008 New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame Innovators Award for his work on underwater acoustic communication. Dr. Abdi will be presented with the award in a ceremony on October 23 at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Piero M. Armenante, Ph.D, Distinguished Professor in the Otto H. York Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering, received an excellent teacher designation at NJIT's recent convocation.

Rajesh N. Dave, PhD, Distinguished Professor in the Otto H. York Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering, received NJIT's Excellence in Research Award at NJIT's recent convocation.

Dr. Kamalesh Sirkar of Chemical Engineering will be receiving the Clarence Gerhold Award on November 17, 2008 at the Banquet of the Separations Division of AIChE during the Centennial Annual AIChE Meeting in Philadelphia. This award recognizes an individual's outstanding contributions in research, development, or in the application of chemical separations technology with at least 15 years of contributions to separations technology. Such activity may include demonstrated leadership in research, teaching, or engineering. The award also recognizes a unique and valuable contribution to separations technology which has had a major impact on one of the separation technologies. The contribution should represent a turning point in a particular technology. The recipient should have a continuing and extensive record of service to the Separations Division. Please join NCE in congratulating Dr. Kamalesh Sirkar.

Three students from the Heritage Institute of Technology in Kolkata, India, are spending the summer at NJIT, taking advantage of a rare opportunity to gain hands-on experience with NCE’s new automated industrial production system. Soumik Chakrabarty, Saurabh Kumar, and Shipon Roy are conducting research projects alongside Stabile Graduate Fellow Frank Munoz, who is teaching the visiting students how to write programs for the software that controls the automated production system. The system, designed by Festo, was installed last fall in the new Vincent A. Stabile Systems Engineering and Management Laboratories.

Professor Durga Misra of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department has been elected to serve as the Chair of Dielectric Science and Technology Division (DS&T) of the Electrochemical Society (ECS). His tenure as Chair will be 2008-2010. Most of the ECS technical activities are conducted through its divisions that represent established technical areas. The purpose of DS&T is to stimulate fundamental research including physics, chemistry, materials science, synthesis, characterization, processing, fabrication, manufacturing, and reliability of various dielectric materials and their related applications. In addition to technical activities, the division also promotes the exchange and publication of information related to all aspects of the science and technology of dielectric materials. Prof. Misra is also a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.

Giuseppe DiBenedetto and Micaela Caramellino are respectively, the first-place and second-place NJIT winners of the 2008 ISPE, International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering Student Poster competion, which took place at Rutgers University on Friday, April 25. Every year the New Jersey Chapter of ISPE holds this competition for students at the local universities under its jurisdiction, i.e., Rutgers, Stevens, and NJIT. This year, three three-member judging panels reviewed all the student posters and evaluated the presentations that every student in the competition was required to give. The judges were all highly qualified, and typically manager-level or director-level, representatives of local pharmaceutical companies. A total of six student wimmers, i.e., two student from each shcool, were selected. They will have all expenses paid to participae in the National ISPE Student Poster competition event that will take place in Boca Raton, Fl in October 2008.

The IEEE Computer Society Annual Sysmposium on VLSI (ISVLSI) explores emerging trends and novel ideas and concepts in the area of VLSI (Very Larg Scale Intergration). For almost two decades, the symposium has been a unique forum promoting multidisciplinary research and new visionary approaches in the area of VLSI. At this year's ISVLSI 2008 symposium, a paper titled "BTB Access Filtering: A Low Energy and High Performance Design" co-authored by Shuai Wang, Jie Hu, and Sotirious G. Ziavras for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NCE, has been chosen by the Program Committee as one of only six papers for the Best Paper Award. Candidates for the Best Paper Award are papers that obtained the best reviews among 220 submissions and they represent about 8% fo the 74 accepted papers. This award is sponsored by NXP, Philips. Shuai Wang is a Ph.D. student, Jie Hu is an Assistant Professor and Sotirios G. Ziavras is a Professor in the ECE Department.

NJIT in one of only five recipients nationally of the ASME Clarke Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to incoming freshmen, based on the activities of its ASME student section. The scholarship will have a tremendous impact on the fall 2008 class, in Mechanical Engineering. Scholarship recipients are the future of Mechanical Engineering and are committed to making lasting contributions. Thanks again to the ASME Foundation, honoring the past, serving the present and investing in the future.

December 12, 2008

The Application deadline for the (Spring) April 2009 Exam is November 21, 2008

The NCE Salute to Engineering Excellence will be held on March 26, 2009.