NJIT in the News

NJIT researchers are at work on many scientific and technological frontiers. The National Science Foundation has recently provided support that totals nearly $4.3 million for the diverse efforts of the following investigators under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Ali N. Akansu, PhD, professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering, will discuss "Generalized Discrete Fourier Transform with Nonlinear Phase: Theory, Design and Applications" on Oct. 28 at 2:30 p.m. in ECE 202.

"Internet 2.0: Hype or Hope?" is the topic of the IEEE COMSOC Distinguished Lecture by Henning Schulzrinne, PhD, the Levi Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, on Oct. 8 at 6 p.m. (refreshments start at 5:45 pm.) in 202 ECEC. The event is co-sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society North Jersey Chapter and the NJIT Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Contact Nirwan Ansari at 973-596-3670 or Yanchao Zhang at 973-642-7817.

Yoshihiko Takahashi, PhD, a professor of mechanical systems engineering at the Kanagawa Institute of Technology in Kanagawa, Japan, will discuss "Sustainable Technologies for Humans and the Earth" at the North Jersey IEEE/NJIT Control Systems Seminar on Sept 10, 5-6 p.m. in 202 ECEC. Takahashi's research interests are in human-assisted robotic systems, fuel cell electrical vehicles, and applications of sustainable energy. For more information, contact Timothy Chang at 973-596-3519; changtn@njit.edu.

V. Ramgopal Rao, PhD, a professor in the EE Department of IIT Bombay, a visiting professor at Georgia Tech and a distinguished lecturer of the IEEE Electron Device Society, will discuss "Polymer Based Sensor Systems for Healthcare and Homeland Security" at an IEEE and Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Seminar on June 8, 5-6 p.m. in the ECE Building Rm. 202. 

"Are VLSI Test Channels A Portal for Hackers?" is the topic of a talk by Ramesh Karri, PhD, of the Polytechnic Institute of NYU on May 18 at 11:30 a.m. in the ECE Building Rm. 202. For more information, contact Roberto Rojas-Cessa.

Tiffany Jing Li, PhD, an associate professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Lehigh University, will discuss "Wireless Network Communications: Unifying Source, Channel and Network Coding" on April 13 at 3 p.m. in ECEC 202. The IEEE Communications Society (COMSOC) North Jersey Chapter and NJIT's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering are co-sponsors of the event. Contact: Nirwan Ansari at 973-596-3670 or Yanchao Zhang at 973-642-7817.

Yun Qing Shi, PhD, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, will discuss "First Digit Law and Its Application to Digital Forensics" at a Computer Science Department Seminar on April 13, 2:30-3:30 p.m. in the Guttenberg Information Technologies Center 4415.

Salman Naqvi, of Kearny, a junior studying electrical engineering at NJIT, was named a prestigious Goldwater Scholar earlier this week by the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program. 

An NJIT electrical engineer has cracked the code that will enable researchers around the world to detect tampering with electronic images.

The Lasers and Electro-Optics Chapter of the IEEE North Jersey Section and the Electronic Imaging Center at NJIT will host “Cellular-Scale Dynamics: Kinetics and Hydrodynamics,” a seminar by Howard Stone, PhD, professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University, on April 6 at 3:30 p.m. in the Campus Center Ballroom B. For more information, contact Professors Raquel Perez-Castillejos or Haim Grebel.

Stamatios V. Kartalopoulos, PhD, COMSOC Distinguished Lecturer and Williams Professor in Telecommunications Networking at the University of Oklahoma, will discuss "Chaos and Its Applicability to Communications Security" on March 24 at 6 p.m. in ECEC 202. The event is sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society North Jersey Chapter and NJIT's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Stan Moyer, executive director and strategic research program manager at Telcordia Technologies, will present a seminar on "Trusted Access to Information in a Diverse Services Environment: A High-Value Mobile Application Enabler" on March 9 at 6 p.m. in the ECEC 202.

Alexander C. Loui, PhD, of Kodak Research Labs at the Eastman Kodak Company, will discuss his recent work on "Media Content Analysis for Semantic Indexing and Detection" on Feb. 19 at 4:45 p.m. in ECE 202. The seminar is jointly sponsored by the NJIT-IEEE Signal Processing Society North Jersey Section and NJIT's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

"Fault Diagnosis Engineering of Digital Circuits Can Identify Vulnerable Molecules in Complex Cellular Networks" is the topic of a Mathematical Biology Seminar by Ali Abdi, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NJIT, on Feb. 10 at 4 p.m. in Cullimore Hall, Room 611.

NJIT Professor Grace Guiling Wang, PhD will discuss "Dependable Sensor Networks" on Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. in ECEC 202. The seminar is sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society North Jersey Chapter and NJIT's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

Congratulations to NJIT Professors Richard Sher and Raquel Perez-Castillejos on their recent accomplishments.

Nirwan Ansari, of Montville, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, has received two notable honors. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has named him a Fellow for his contributions to broadband networks and communications. Ansari also received an award from the IEEE member and geographic activities board.

Judith Sheft, associate vice president for technology development at NJIT, has been awarded funds from the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology to assist faculty researchers with the most promising patentable inventions with funding grants of up to $50,000. 

Congratulations to Theologos Homer Bonitsis, Christopher Funkhouser, and Elizabeth Avery-Gomez '07 and students Nilufa Rahim and Brian Novello on their recent accomplishments.

The Research & Development Council of New Jersey will present on Nov. 6, 2008, a coveted Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award to NJIT Distinguished Professor Yeheskel Bar-Ness, a prominent expert in the field of wireless communications and signal processing.

Thanks to companies, universities, and inventors designing and manufacturing biomedical sensors, healthcare and its related economy will radically change over the next decade.

Nine industry/academic speakers will present a broad spectrum of important issues including careers, research, and education at the "Bioelectronics, Imaging, and Control: Challenges and Opportunities" seminar on Nov. 6, 5-6 p.m. in  ECEC 202 (Conference Room). The seminar is to open to IEEE members, science and engineering students and communities as well as the general public. For more information, contact Professor Timothy Chang at 973-596-3519; chang@njit.edu.

Scientists believe that complex diseases such as schizophrenia, major depression and cancer are not caused by one, but a multitude of dysfunctional genes. A novel computational biology method developed by a research team led by Ali Abdi, PhD, associate professor in NJIT’s department of electrical and computer engineering, has found a way to uncover the critical genes responsible for disease development.

An NJIT professor who has discovered new communication channels in underwater environments and invented a technique to communicate data through these channels will be honored later this month by the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame.

NJIT conducted a summer research program in partnership with the Heritage Institute of Technology (HITK) in Kolkata, India. The 20 students enrolled in NJIT’s Undergraduate Research Experience Symposium were able to participate in a state-of-the-art research facility with world-class faculty. They were accompanied by Srabanti Basu, a senior lecturer in biotechnology at HITK. The program was initiated and managed by Durga Misra, PhD, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NJIT, who also encouraged the participation of faculty and the Albert Dorman Honors College students who mentored the HITK students after hours in their residence hall. “The Summer Research Experience is a rare opportunity to receive hands-on training with NJIT professors and students at the university’s facilities,” said Misra. “A group of three students worked in NJIT’s new Vincent A. Stabile Systems Engineering and Management Laboratories to gain experience with the Stabile Laboratories’ Festo System.” Student research projects included low-power microchip design, drug delivery systems, nanoelectronics, ultrafiltration to scalable web search, clean slate Internet design and management systems analysis.

Ali Abdi, PhD, an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, 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.

Sui-hoi Edwin Hou, PhD, of Greenbrook, an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT received an excellent service designation at NJIT’s recent annual convocation.  

Nirwan Ansari, PhD, of Montville, a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at NJIT, received an excellent teacher designation at NJIT’s recent annual convocation ceremony. 

NJIT will mark, once again, the new school year with University Convocation, an annual celebration and awards ceremony recognizing students, faculty and staff accomplishments. 

Ying Wu, founder of UTStarcom, a highly successful telecommunications firm, and currently General Partner at CTC Capital, met on Tuesday with Stewart D. Personick (right), the Ying Wu Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Newark College of Engineering, and NJIT President Robert A. Altenkirch. The Ying Wu Endowed Chair is supported by a gift of $1.5 million from Mr. Wu, who earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering at NCE in 1988.

Salman Naqvi, an electrical engineering major at NJIT, has been been awarded the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship for 2008. Naqvi is working with NJIT Physics Professor Andrew Gerrard on developing a compact molecular-aerosol Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) system that detects the gravity waves above the Newark and New York City metropolitan areas. 

Durga Misra, PhD, professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, was elected to serve as chair of the Dielectric Science and Technology (DS&T) Division of the Electrochemical Society. Misra is also a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.

A team of four students received the platinum (first place) award for their project "A Real Time Wireless Data Acquisition System" at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Senior Design Workshop on May 5. From left: Atam Dhawan, PhD, chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT; William Contrares; Fernando Delgado; Darren Coppola; Yevgeniy Voronin; and Kevin Carswell, chair of the ECE/IAB at IBM.

Kodzovi Acolatse, a PhD student in the department of electrical and computer engineering, discussed "SCFDE Space Time Spreading (STS) Schemes in Multi-User DS-CSMA Wireless Communication” today at NJIT. Acolatse was one of eight doctoral students who presented their research at the annual Center for Wireless Communication and Signal Processing Research Day.

Sara Gatmir Motahari, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, was recently named a 2008 Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship finalist. She will receive an award of $1,000. The program awards academic scholarships to outstanding undergraduate and graduate women who are completing degrees in computer science and related fields and who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing women in technology.

Qing Yang, PhD, distinguished professor of engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Rhode Island, will discuss “TRAP-Array: A Disk Array Architecture Providing Timely Recovery to Any Point-in-Time” on April 18 at 11:45 a.m. in ECEC Room 202 (conference room). The talk is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NJIT. 

MengChu Zhou, PhD, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, presented a keynote lecture on "Petri Nets" on April 7 at the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control in Sanya, China.

An electrical and computer engineering junior at NJIT was named to the second team of the 19th annual all-USA college academic program sponsored by the publication USA TODAY. Mohammad Farhan Haider Naqvi, of Kearny, received the honor based upon an application he submitted last fall listing his accomplishments to date.  

Zoran Gajic, PhD, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rutgers University, will discuss "Power Control in Wireless Communication Networks via Estimation of Signal Interference and Optimization of Signal to Interference Ratio" on Tuesday Dec 18, 2007 at 5-6PM in 202 ECEC.

Ali N. Akansu, PhD, professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, has been elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), one of the Institute’s most prestigious honors and the highest grade of membership.

A liquid dispensing system useful for identifying medical woes ranging from cancer to bird flu will garner an award for two NJ inventors this week. The researchers Timothy Chang, electrical and computer engineering professor at NJIT, and Peter Tolias, executive director, Institute of Genomic Medicine at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, will be honored Nov. 7 by the Research and Development Council of New Jersey for their patent to develop this new system.

NJIT Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Timothy Wang, PhD, of Montville, received an excellent teacher designation at NJIT’s annual convocation on Sept. 5, 2007.

A way to provide electricity to New York City in the next century garnered a national award for a team of students at NJIT. The “City of the Future” contest sponsored by IBM, The History Channel, and the American Society of Civil Engineers named four NJIT electrical and computer engineering students “IBM Engineers of the Future.”

The man who helped make wireless cell phones a must-have device for millions around the world recently received kudos and thanks from colleagues at the anniversary of the founding in 1986 of NJIT's Center for Wireless Communication and Signal Processing. The Center was the brainchild of visionary electrical engineer Yeheskel Bar-Ness, PhD, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT.

Students Ho Ting Shiu, Richard Zieminski and Kiratbir Khurana received the platinum (first place) award for their project "GPS Tracking with an Integrated RF Transceiver" at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Senior Design Workshop on Dec. 14. From left: Ho Ting Shiu, Richard Zieminski, Kiratbir Khurana, Kevin Carswell, chair, ECE/Industry Advisory Board, IBM; and Atam Dhawan, chair, ECE.

Durga Misra, PhD, a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at NJIT, was named a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society. The Society recognized Misra for his pioneering research on understanding and minimizing process induced damage mechanisms in metal-oxide-semiconductor devices and silicon-germanium devices and materials.

Alexander Haimovich wants to improve consumer wireless services during the next three years, despite predictions of worsening services. That’s why Haimovich, an electrical and computer engineering professor at NJIT will lead a research team to prevent a downturn in services.

Durgamadhab Misra, PhD, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NJIT, will present an invited research talk on “Negative Bias Temperature Instability in TiN/Hf-silicate Based Gate Stacks" at Cornell University's 2006 Lester Eastman Conference On High Performance Devices on August 2-4.

Durgamadhab (Durga) Misra, PhD, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, recently presented an invited research talk, “Interface Characterization of High-K Dielectrics on Ge Substrate" at the European Materials Research Society’s spring meeting in Nice, France at the symposium “Germanium-Based Semiconductors ... From Materials to Devices.“

High school sophomores and juniors considering careers in electrical and computer engineering participated in the 2006 Summer Electrical and Computer Engineering Career Exploration Program on June 27-28 at NJIT. Hosted by NJIT’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE), the two-day program offered opportunities to interact with well-known electrical and computer engineers, tour NJIT facilities, stay overnight in campus residence halls and work on technically challenging projects.

Yeheskel Bar-Ness, PhD, a distinguished professor at NJIT, was named an Inventor of the Year today by the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame. Bar-Ness was cited for his inventive research in the area of electrical and computer engineering at an awards luncheon at NJIT.

Atam P. Dhawan, PhD, professor and chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, was named the conference chair of  the 28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). The event will be held August 30-Sept. 3 in New York City.

Shuangquan Wang, a doctoral student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at NJIT, took first prize in a graduate poster contest that was part of the IEEE’s Global Telecommunication Conference, held in St. Louis, Mo. Wang’s poster highlighted his breakthrough research that could help improve the communication system known as multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO). 

Four student teams at NJIT won research awards during a Senior Design Poster Presentation Workshop sponsored by the university’s department of electrical and computer engineering (ECE). Atam Dhawan, PhD, chairman of the ECE department, hosted the Dec. 9 workshop, during which student teams showcased their senior research projects and made presentations to faculty, fellow students and sponsors such as IBM Corporation. Alex Nieves and Wilson A. Rodriquez won first place for their poster presentation.

Mengchu Zhou, PhD, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Laboratory for Discrete Event Systems at NJIT, received the Outstanding Contribution Award from IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society at the annual banquet of IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics. Zhou was recognized for his contributions in March 2004 as General Co-Chair of the IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing and Control in Taiwan.