NJIT's Forensic Science Initiative Celebrates First Graduates
A select group of local high school seniors have become the first graduates of NJIT’s Forensic Science Initiative (FSI) after successfully completing an intensive STEM training program this year.
FSI’s inaugural class recently drew plaudits from the professional forensic science community at a New Jersey Association of Forensic Scientists (NJAFS) conference, where they showcased their capstone research projects — the culmination of their work throughout the program dating back to last summer.
Launched in 2022 through a collaboration among New Jersey school districts, and NJIT's College of Science and Liberal Arts and Center for Pre-College Programs, the FSI program aims to provide local high schoolers with a pathway to higher education by strengthening their skills in STEM through the gateway of forensic science. The initiative also introduces participants to life on a college campus.
“FSI has been a thrilling project to develop. We've worked with an outstanding group of students from Newark and Orange and been able to provide them with unique experiences seldom available to high schoolers,” said NJIT’s Program Development and Forensic Science Initiative Senior Director Barbara Weller. “They've risen to the challenge in every respect. Through FSI I've also worked with a cohort of high school teachers. They've done such outstanding work that we'll be able to expand the opportunities in NJIT forensic science to reach over 200 students this coming year.”
The initiative is already making inroads — many of FSI’s first cohort will be attending NJIT in the fall, according to the university’s Forensic Science Program Director David Fisher.
“What impressed me the most about these students was their drive and intellectual curiosity,” said Fisher. “They really challenged themselves by taking a college-level course while in high school and their hard work has really paid off.”
Students Showcase Work Across Forensic Science Fields
FSI's inaugural class of thirteen students gave poster presentations at NJAFS’s annual forensic conference hosted at NJIT’s Agile Strategy Lab, displaying everything they’ve learned over rigorous weeks of book studies, lab work, field research and tutoring alongside faculty and student mentors.
Projects reflected the incredibly diverse range of forensic science fields.
Recently graduated seniors from Newark's Barringer High School (Santiago Mosquera), South Orange's STEM Innovation Academy of the Oranges (Carla Plaza-Carro) and American History High School in Newark (Luis Solorzano) presented research on how analysis of metadata from drones can offer key forensic data for investigative leads.
“FSI was a great opportunity to see how I’d fit into NJIT next year, and it even gave me an excuse to get a drone license,” said Plaza-Carro, an NJIT enrollee who’ll major in architecture in the fall. “We got to study this new field of forensics by flying drones around campus. It was a fun way to get to know the university.
“The open-source software we used let us learn how evidence can be collected in cases where a crime was committed using a drone. We could see flight videos in real time and pinpoint where the remote or drone was at the time of recording, which is pretty cool.”
Meanwhile, Brandon Palacios, Khyasia Andrews (University High School, Newark) and Breena Stephen (STEM Innovation High School of the Oranges) discussed how their “Rat-Trap” device could replicate impact bloodstain patterns to study crime scenes.
STEM Innovation Academy of the Oranges’ Alnisa Conley and American History High School’s Aishat Jimoh-Kuku teamed up to present a study on a new NMR-based method for more accurately quantifying the amount of caffeine in popular energy drinks. Among the key findings of their project, the team detected at least one energy drink across six samples had double the amount of caffeine listed on the can.
Barringer High School graduates Bryan Fontanez and Santiago Parhuana, and STEM Innovation Academy of the Oranges graduate Caleb Osorio sought to develop a VR experience that enables students to practice investigative skills in a simulated crime scene environment. All three team members have been active on campus this summer preparing for their first semester at NJIT through the university’s Educational Opportunity Program.
Weequahic High School graduates Elliot Ampofo and Azim Haroun presented research on pain biosensors, a relatively new area of research that aims to detect and measure pain signals.
“Everyone experiences pain differently, so our project focused on studying how certain enzymes react in the human body environment, which could potentially be used to measure pain better. This field of research could be useful for things like determining wait times for hospital patients for instance,” said Haroun, another NJIT enrollee who who will major in biochemistry this fall.
“FSI is a great way to get a head start in forensics and related STEM fields. For me, it was really rewarding to begin getting hands-on experience in a real lab setting as well as get a sense of what campus life is like before freshman year.”