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NJIT Next:

Strategic Directions 2012


Highlights of 2010-2011

University Achievements New Books
Faculty & Staff Honors Appointments & Promotions
Student Honors & Achievements Economic Development
Athletics Professional Activities
Grants & Patents

University Achievements

  • For the second year, NJIT has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, one of the highest federal recognitions a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement. The Corporation for National and Community Service, which has administered the Honor Roll since 2006, admitted over 600 colleges and universities for their impact on issues from literacy and neighborhood revitalization to supporting at-risk youth.
  • NJIT was named an Outstanding University for 2010 by the American Concrete Institute.
  • U.S. News & World Report’s 2011 Annual Guide to America’s Best Colleges named NJIT among the nation’s top tier of national research universities. NJIT also ranked 4th in Campus Diversity.
  • The Bloomberg Business Week survey of U.S. colleges ranked NJIT in the top 10 percent nationally for return on investment and classified the university as one of four higher education “best buys” in New Jersey.
  • Forbes magazine ranked NJIT among its 650 best colleges, 202 among research universities, and 157 among colleges in the Northeast.
  • Payscale.com ranked NJIT fourth among state universities for salary potential, both at the starting level and at mid-career.
  • The Princeton Review listed NJIT among its Best 373 Colleges for 2011.
  • The Princeton Review also listed NJIT among the most environmentally responsible in the Review’s Guide to 311 Green Colleges, based on a notable commitment to sustainability in academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities and career preparation.
  • NJIT once again ranked prominently among the Top 100 Degree Producers for 2011 named by Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Undergraduate results included:
    • African-American degree recipients — 21st in engineering; 27th in architecture; 29th in engineering technology.
    • Asian-American graduates — 8th in engineering technology; 13th in architecture; 14th in computer and information sciences.
    • Hispanic bachelor’s recipients — 6th in engineering technology; 15th in computer and information sciences; 18th in engineering; 21st in architecture.
    • Total minority graduates — 15th in computer science; 22nd in architecture; 25rd in engineering; 29th in engineering technology.

Graduate rankings included:

  • African-American master’s recipients — 4th in engineering; 6th in engineering technologies.
  • Asian-American masters graduates —5th in engineering technologies; 19th in engineering; 25th in architecture; 27th in mathematics and statistics.
  • Hispanic master’s recipients — 3rd in engineering technologies; 17th in engineering.
  • Total minority master’s degree recipients — 5th in engineering technology; 17th in engineering; 21st in mathematics and statistics; 48th in architecture.


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Faculty and Staff Honors

  • Jerry Fjermestad, William Rapp and Marguerite Schneider, all professors of management, won Bright Idea Research Awards for writing research papers that were published in the annual journal, “Publications of New Jersey's Business Faculty.” The awards are sponsored by the New Jersey Policy Research Organization, a nonprofit policy group, and Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business.
  • "How Entrepreneurs Seduce Business Angels: Finding a Balance between Overstated Expectations and Understated Aspirations," a paper co-authored by Michael Ehrlich and Annaleena Parhankangas, assistant professor and associate professor, respectively, of management, earned the designation of "Best Paper" and was accepted for full presentation at the 2010 Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management (IBAM) Conference.
  • Nirwan Ansari, professor of electrical engineering, was selected for an IEEE Globecom 2010 Best Paper Award as co-author of “HYMN to Improve the Longevity of Wireless Sensor Networks.”
  • Susan Pikaart Bristol, adjunct professor of architecture, was one of 10 women honored at the 28th Annual Tribute to Women 2011 Achievement Awards dinner on March 3 at the Hyatt Regency Princeton. Sponsored by the YWCA Princeton, the event recognizes the outstanding achievements of a small group of female leaders in the greater Princeton community.
  • Sharon Gilbert, assistant director of Career Development Services, received the Practitioner of the Year Award from the New Jersey Cooperative Education and Internship Association for her accomplishments with the Call to Serve program to promote federal careers to students.
  • Shanthi Gopalakrishnan, a professor and associate dean in the School of Management, was named a Fellow of the Eastern Academy of Management. The Eastern Academy of Management is a regional affiliate of the Academy of Management, which is the largest national association of academics in the management discipline.
  • Marcelle Jackson, MIS manager for Career Development Services, received the Award of Appreciation from the New Jersey Haitian Student Association for her outstanding contribution, personal commitment and dedication to current and future Haitian scholars throughout New Jersey.
  • Louis Lanzerotti, distinguished professor of physics, received the 2011 AGU William Bowie Medal from the American Geophysical Union. He was cited for outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation on research.
  • Norman Loney, chair of the Otto H. York Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering, was elected a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
  • The Irish Voice newspaper named Patrick J. McGowan '88, president of McGowan Builders, Inc. and a member of the NJIT Board of Overseers, to its 2010 Irish Education 100, a list of the leading figures in education across North America.
  • Jay N. Meegoda, professor of civil engineering, has been named a Fellow by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The ASCE awards fellowships to civil engineers who have made significant technical or professional contributions to the profession, hold a P.E. license, and have at least ten years of exceptional, responsible engineering experience gained while at member grade in ASCE.
  • Priscilla P. Nelson, professor of civil and environmental engineering department of civil and environmental engineering , was selected by the American Society of Civil Engineers to receive the 2011 Henry L. Michel Award for Industry Advancement of Research.
  • Allison Perlman, assistant professor of history, has been awarded a one-year research fellowship in the Verklin Program in Media Ethics and Policy at the University of Virginia. She is the first research fellow in the Verklin Program, which intends to produce high-quality academic research on the ethics of media policy, the reciprocal relationship between the media and the law, and the political and social impact of media regulation. The fellowship will support completion of her book manuscript, Reforming Television: Media Activism, Media Policy, Media History.
  • Ronald H. Rockland, chair of the Department of Engineering Technology, has been named a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).
  • Anthony D. Rosato, professor of mechanical engineering, has received a Fulbright Senior Research Award to study the dynamic behavior of systems composed of particles at the University of Salerno,
  • Associate Professor Tony Schuman was awarded the Charles Cummings Award from the Newark Preservation and Landmarks Committee (NPLC) for his tireless efforts to help Newark recover its status as a first class city. The honor recognizes Schuman’s accomplishments in preserving and recording the history of the city, not only its significant structures and landscapes but its social and cultural legacy.
  • Donald H. Sebastian, senior vice president for research and development, was named Public Sector Advocate of the Year by the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey (SHCC).  He recently led a collaboration with the Chamber and the Universidad Garcilaso Del Vega in Lima, Peru to develop a business incubator serving the emerging small businesses in that country with an eye towards increasing export activities.  
  • Nancy Steffen-Fluhr, associate professor of humanities and director of the Murray Center for Women in Technology, was honored by Soroptimist International of the Greater Westfield area for her work to help women succeed in academe.
  • Marino Xanthos, professor of chemical engineering, was awarded the 2010 Heinz List Award by the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) for outstanding achievements in polymerization reactions and polymer devolatilization technologies.
  • Adjunct Professor Polina Zaitseva was among 36 international finalists in the 2011 Digital Graffiti Festival in Alys Beach, She was selected for her work, “Blue Orange.”
  • MengChu Zhou, professor of electrical engineering, received the Franklin V. Taylor Memorial Award for the best conference paper at the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society conference.


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Student Honors and Achievements

NJIT's "Flying Highlander" took fourth place overall and second in design presentation at the annual Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Aero Design West competition. The Highlander was designed and built this past winter by six mechanical engineering students: (In photo) Jeffrey Van Fossen, Michael Anderson (team captain), and Michael Melillo; (not pictured) Carl Ritacco, Chamberline Nwokey and Jonathan Weiss.

A team of four MBA students – Sumuukh Sharma, Muham Wang Claire, Jason Marcus, and Swei Zhue -- took fourth place in the Supply Chain Management Competition sponsored by APICS, the association for operations management.

The NJIT Student Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery has won the organization's Outstanding Chapter Recruitment Award. They will receive $500 and a new logo. The NJIT ACM Chapter's faculty advisor is Narain Gehani, dean of the College of Computing Sciences at NJIT.

Students whose work has been displayed on the Synergis website sponsored by Autodesk include: Allen Catbagen, industrial design major, Juicer, Ran Lerner studio; James Miller, industrial design major, Juicer, Ran Lerner studio; Reina Gonzalez, industrial design major, Juicer, Ran Lerner studio; Jessica Uhlik, interior design student, Nightclub, Glenn Goldman studio; Mina Liba, interior design student, Cafe, Glenn Goldman studio; Hyungshin Stephanie Kim, interior design student, Cafe, Glenn Goldman studio.

Students from the School of Art + Design exhibited their work at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Javits Center in New York:

  • Second Year Industrial Design: Jabeen Ali, Kristen Ciandella, Steve Dasilva, Nick Domanski, Jeff Groves, Brian Hsieh, Matt Negron, Kyle Ralli, Tracy Wu
  • Third Year Industrial Design: Ben Mui, Kyle Gulliford, Sara Jane Rin, Avrami Rakovsky
  • Second Year Interior Design: Tatiana Duarte, Peter Fritzky, Nora Hamade.
  • Third Year Interior Design: Peter Khalil, Mina Liba, Melissa Pereira, Tristan Pashalian, Ida Torres, Hyungshin Stephanie Kim, Jessica Uhlik

Interior design students Tristan Pashalian, Ida Torres and Peter Khalil comprised a team that placed third in the national Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) Student Competition for their design of a healthcare clinic for the city of Newark. The team’s design considered both the economic and ethnic makeup of the community and created a welcoming, accessible healthcare facility equipped to provide basic health services and education to an underserved population. A second team of interior design students, including Hyungshin Stephanie Kim, Melissa Pereira and Mina Liba, placed among the top three regional entries.

NJIT took fourth place in the District A Student National Design Contest (SDC) at the  ASME Professional Student Development Conference (SPDC) held at Temple University The design involved the development of prototype device that derives it's propulsive energy from falling rainwater. NJIT’s team included Nathaniel Ching, Durand Durga and Frankel Huang were awarded fourth place.

Honors scholar Faizan Naqvi, a physics major, has become the third in his family to win a Goldwater Scholarship while studying at NJIT. He and his brothers Salman, '10, and Mohammad, '09, are the only three brothers ever to win Goldwater Scholarships. Faizan works on solar research with Distinguished Professor Haiman Wang, while Salman pursues graduate studies at Stanford, and Mohammad works as an electronics engineer for Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems Company.

For the sixth straight year, the NJIT ASCE Steel Bridge team took first place honors at the 2011 Metropolitan New York Region Steel Bridge Competition. They won five of the six scoring categories: Construction Speed, Stiffness, Efficiency, Lightness and Overall.

Kyle Devitt, Andre Moses and Hagop Bouchakjiane were awarded 2010 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Clarke Scholarships. NJIT has won the award five times in the last six years. The scholarship is awarded nationally based on a competitive proposal; six are awarded at $6,000 per winning university.

The NJIT Society of Women Engineers (SWE) received the Outstanding Collegiate Section Website Award at the 2010 National Society of Women Engineers Conference held on Nov. 3-7 in Orlando, Florida. NJIT SWE President Hanisha Patel, a master's student in industrial engineering, accepted the award from SWE President Sidika Demir.

Carlo Badiola and Paul Dupiano, both graduate students in the Otto H. York Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering, placed second and third, respectively, in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Region I-NE Student Conference. The conference is a technical paper competition for AIAA student members at both undergraduate and graduate (master’s) levels.

Industrial design student Kristen Ciandella was awarded the top prize of $1,500 for her “Wave Collection” in a table-top design competition sponsored by Cambridge Silversmiths, Ltd. of Fairfield, NJ for the second-year industrial design studio. Honorable mention awards of $500 each were awarded to Jeffrey Groves and Jabeen S. Ali. The studio is taught by Adjunct Professor Ran Lerner, principal of Ran Lerner Design in New York City. 

Michael GonzalezMichael Gonzalez, a senior majoring in information technology who has held a number of leadership positions in NJIT's Residence Life since his freshman year, has won the Central Atlantic Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls (CAACURH) Distinguished Service Award.

Digital design student Benjamin Gross won the Cover Design Competition sponsored by VALE, a consortium of college and university libraries. The honors scholar created an abstract cover incorporating an image of gently undulating planes with repeating perturbations. Gross and fellow design student Daniel Palma were accepted for the second year in a row to participate in the Student Volunteer Program for SIGGRAPH 2011 held in Vancouver, British Columbia. The two students, seniors in the Entertainment Track in the BA program in Digital Design, provided thirty hours of volunteer service to the conference attended by more than 15,000 people, and also attended technical paper presentations, emerging technology exhibits, the juried digital art show, industry production sessions, and the annual computer animation festival. Throughout the week the two students, along with their international peers, had opportunities to participate in special networking activities with academic and industry leaders.

Ian Lafond, a doctoral student in  Biomedical Engineering, has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award for Individual Predoctoral Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health. This $142,000 award will support Ian's dissertation research in the lab of Associate Professor Sergei Adamovich over the next four years.

Chemical engineering major Richard Ossa was selected as one of the first to be named an Obama Scholar in a competitive process by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF). The scholarship is funded by money President Barack Obama donated to HSF upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. HSF designated that the donation be used to help Hispanic students interested in teaching in the science, technology engineering and mathematics fields.

Shruti Parekh, a graduate student in pharmaceutical engineering, is the 2011 winner of the Annual International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) New Jersey Chapter Student Poster Competition. At the Nutley facility of Hoffmann-LaRoche, Shruti presented her award-winning poster entitled “Dissolution of Disintegrating Solid Dosage Forms in a Modified Dissolution Testing Apparatus 2,” which is based on the MS thesis that she is completing with Piero Armenante, PhD, distinguished professor of chemical engineering.

TristanInterior Design student Tristan Pashalian won second place in the 2011 Samuel and Rhoda Chalfin Memorial Scholarship Competition for his design of the “Lean Green Chair” that is constructed entirely of cardboard, and held together through compression without the use of glue, tape, or staples. Inspired by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld’s “Berlin Chair,” Pashalian’s piece, which can be disassembled and reassembled at will, was originally created in Assistant Professor David Brothers’ class in furniture design.

Industrial Design students Sara Jane Rin and Samantha Tartaro presented their design of a sustainable playground and playground equipment for Thailand at an Earth Day Educational Fair sponsored by Tishman Construction. The playground design utilized local materials – bamboo, rope and old tires. The designs were created in the studio of Adjunct Professor Ran Lerner. Sara Jane also has chair she designed in the studio of Adjunct Professor Ran Lerner displayed by the Rhino News website.

Khondaker M. Salehin, a PhD candidate in the ECE Department at NJIT, was the runner-up in the Student Poster Competition of the IEEE Sarnoff Symposium 2010 in Princeton. Salehin presented a scheme to measure link capacity and available bandwidth for wired networks. This work was developed in the Networking Research Laboratory under the supervision of Roberto Rojas-Cessa, associate professor of electrical engineering.

Stephanie Thompson, a digital design student, was among 36 international finalists in the 2011 Digital Graffiti Festival in Alys Beach, She was selected to display her work, “Another Perspective,” created as part a design elective taught by Assistant Professor Andrzej Zarzycki.

Xiaoli Wang, doctoral student in electrical engineering, won the student poster competition at the 2011 IEEE Wireless and Optical Communications Conference. Her advisor in Hongya Ge, associate professor of electrical engineering.


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Athletics

NJIT’s women’s tennis team made history by becoming the first varsity team ever to capture a Division I championship, winning the Great West Conference and posting a school Division I best 17-8 record. The team also boasted the highest grade point average -- average combined team GPA was 3.663 with three freshmen members posting 4.00 GPAs in their first terms. Russian-born Ksenia Kuzmenko, an interior design major, won dual honors in the Great West Conference as Athlete of the Year and Newcomer of the Year.

The NJIT Ice Hockey Team took the 2010-2011 championship trophy at the Great Northeast Collegiate Hockey Conference playoffs.

Twenty-Nine NJIT student-athletes in six sports were named to the Winter/Spring 2010-11 Great West Conference all-Academic team:

  • Baseball:  Steven Ace, Industrial Engineering major; Teddy Bickert, Business major; Bryan Bleakley, Civil Engineering major; John Bouck, Mechanical Engineering major; Tripp Davis, Business major; John Prestano, Mechanical Engineering major.
  • Men’s Basketball: Sammy Schickel, Business major.
  • Women’s Basketball: Jessica Gerald; Business major; Maria Sanchez, Business major; Emily Schartner; Science Technology and Society major; Ivana Seric, Mathematical Sciences major.
  • Women’s Tennis: Ana Lidon and Nina Mayevska, both Business majors.
  • Men’s Indoor & Outdoor Track & Field: Aamir Ahmed, Biomedical Engineering major; Jonathan Daudelin, Mechanical Engineering major; Josh Dolisca, Electrical Engineering major; Tim Esposito, Computer Science major; Joe Ju, Biomedical Engineering major; Adam Morgan, Architecture major; Jonathan Nunez, Computer Science major; Ruben Santos, Construction Engineering Technology major.
  • Women’s Indoor & Outdoor Track & Field: Lauren Dupuis, Biomedical Engineering Major; Vanessa Escalera, Biomedical Engineering major; Daisy Gallegos, Information Technology major; Megan Higgins, Biomedical Engineering major; Kelsey Johnson, Civil Engineering major; Catherine Karnas, Chemical Engineering major; Ewelina Marut, Business major; Zoey Tham, Civil Engineering major.

Twelve NJIT student-athletes in three sports were named to the Fall 2010 Great West Conference All-Academic team. The honorees were: Jonathan Daudelin, Joseph Ju, Brian Mendez (men’s cross country); Daisy Gallegos, Megan Higgins, Kayla Howell, Kelsey Johnson, and Ewelina Marut (women’s cross country); Amanda Dotten, Meryl Hershfield, Erin Morris, and Christi Taylor (women’s soccer).


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Grants & Patents

New Grants:

  • Daljit Ahluwalia, chair of mathematical sciences, for his annual conference on Frontiers in Applied and Computational Mathematics (FACM).
  • Treena Livingston Arinzeh, professor of biomedical engineering, to investigate the use of a piezoelectric material that will act as a scaffold for stem cell induced tissue repair.
  • Robert Barat, professor of chemical engineering, for experiments to prove out a new family of catalysts which will carry out the biologically-inspired selective partial oxidation of methane.
  • Denis Blackmore, professor of mathematical sciences, to develop a unified dynamical systems-simulation-visualization approach to modeling and analyzing granular flow phenomena.
  • Yassine Boubendir, assistant professor of mathematical sciences, for the development of innovative and efficient algorithms dedicated to solving problems of acoustic and electromagnetic wave propagation. 
  • Robert Friedman, associate professor and acting chair of humanities, to create an open knowledge exchange system that is based on socio-technical principles, one conducive to collaborative research and the generation of new knowledge.
  • Dale Gary, distinguished professor of physics, to develop new and improved instrumentation and infrastructure for the existing Owens Valley Solar Array (OVSA), and thereby create a major university-based facility serving a broad scientific community.
  • Robert Miura, distinguished professor of mathematical sciences, to study intercellular communication via ion flow in the brain-cell microenvironment and how restricted diffusion of ions can alter brain function using modeling and mathematical and computational analysis.
  • Michael Siegel, professor of mathematical sciences, two grants, to develop innovative theoretical models and numerical methods for the analysis and simulation of surfactant-mediated drop breakup and tip-streaming with soluble surfactant, and to develop and apply efficient boundary integral methods for the motion of interfaces in 3D flow, respectively.
  • Pushpendra Singh, professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, to develop a novel technique in which an electric field is applied normal to an interface is being developed for self-assembling monolayers of particles with virtually defect-free ordering and desired/adjustable lattice spacing.
  • Kamalesh Sirkar, distinguished professor of chemical engineering, to support the Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology Center, an  Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (MAST), in partnership with the University of Colorado, Boulder.
  • Min Song, associate professor of information systems, to develop Query in Context for Educational Collections (QIC) utilizing context sensitive retrieval, semantic query analysis, and concept extraction techniques to create QIC's portable unified knowledge discovery system.
  • Nancy Steffen-Fluhr, associate professor of humanities, to implement two mentoring tools including a research partner finding tool and a faculty research network mapping tool to help women faculty advance their careers in a science and technology setting.
  • Leonid Tsybeskov, professor and chair of electrical engineering, to develop novel technology for reproducible growth of composition-controlled axial Si/Ge nanopillar heterojunctions and demonstrate their applications in transfer electron devices.

NJIT researchers received five new NIH grants in 2010-2011, each a continuation of a long-term project:

  • Sergei Adamovich, associate professor of biomedical engineering, for his project to help stroke patients regain use of their hands and arms through innovative robotic and virtual reality-based video game therapies.
  • Jorge Golowasch, associate professor of mathematical sciences and biological sciences,  to study the relationship between biological rhythms and neuroactive substances such as neuromodulators, hormones and neurotransmitters.
  • Farzan Nadim, professor of biological science and mathematical sciences, to continue his studies of crustaceans and their rhythmic motor patterns for chewing and digestion of food to gain a better understanding of how synaptic dynamics affect neuron activity. 
  • Yehoshua Perl, professor of computer science, for his work in simplifying and refining medical vocabularies – such as UMLS (Unified Medical Language System) and SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terms) used in patient records, decision support systems and healthcare administrative systems.
  • Mesut Sahin, associate professor of biomedical engineering,  to develop and test a technique he calls FLAMES -- floating light activated micro-electrical stimulators --for wireless activation of the central nervous system. Implanted in the spinal cord and energized by an infrared light beam through an optical fiber located outside the dura mater, these micro-stimulators can allow victims of spinal cord injuries to regain the control of paralyzed muscles.

NJIT’s Center for Pre-college Programs has been awarded a three-year grant of $300,000 by ExxonMobil  to develop a distance learning program to share their successful Medibotics , a program  for teaching science and mathematics through simulated robotic surgery with science and math teachers throughout New Jersey and across the U.S. 


New patents:

A record 28 patents were issued to NJIT researchers during 2010-2011, 21 of which have already been licensed or options for commercialization:

  • Nirwan Ansari, professor of electrical and computer engineering, received six new patents for technology related to broadband wireless networks.
  • Reginald Farrow, research professor of physics, received a patent for “Nanotube device and method of fabrication,” involving the electrophoretic deposition of nanotubes.
  • Anthony East, research professor of biomedical engineering, and his team gained a patent for “Polyoxazolidones derived from bisanhydrohexitols,” relating to his work with sugar-based polymers.
  • Yun-Qing Shi, professor of electrical and computer engineering, earned six new patents for new techniques in data hiding and watermarking.
  • John Federici, distinguished professor of physics, received two patents for methods and apparatus related to his work with terahertz radiation.
  • Professor emeritus Robert Pfeffer received two patents related to his work with engineered particulates.
  • Ali Abdi, professor of electrical engineering, gained a patent for a “System and method for channel estimation in communications systems.”
  • Professor Alexander Haimovich received a patent entitled “Method and/or system for space-time encoding and decoding.”
  • Atam Dhawan, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, earned a new patent for “Methods and apparatus for a multi-level dynamic security system.”
  • Yeheskel Bar-Ness, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, received two patents for technical advances related to next-generation wireless networks.
  • C.T. Thomas Hsu, professor of civil engineering, gained a patent for “Composite floor system having shear force transfer member.”
  • Kamalesh Sirkar, distinguished professor of chemical engineering, received a patent for “Solid hollow fiber cooling crystallization systems and methods.


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New Books

  • Miriam Ascarelli, lecturer in humanities, is the author of Independent Vision: Dorothy Harrison Eustis and the Story of the Seeing Eye, published by Purdue University Press.
  • Professor Manish Bhattacharjee and Associate Professors Sunil Dhar, and Sundarraman Subramanian, all of mathematical sciences, are editors of Recent Advances in Biostatistics, Imperial College Press, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, March 2011.
  • Denis Blackmore is co-author of  Nonlinear Dynamical Systems of Mathematical Physics: Spectral and Symplectic Integrability Analysis, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 2011 (March), with  A. Prykarpatsky, V. Samoylenko.
  • E. Pierre “Perry” Deess is a co-author of The Jury and Democracy: How Jury Deliberation Promotes Civil Engagement and Political Participation, published by Oxford University Press.
  • Carol S. Johnson, associate professor of humanities, won the 2010 National Council of Teachers of English Award in the technical and scientific communication category for The Language of Work: Technical Communication at Luken Steel, 1810-1926, published by Baywood Publishing Company.


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Appointments and Promotion


  • Philip L. Rinaldi, 68, MS ’76, chairman of Phoenix Capital LLC, was elected to succeed Emil C. Herkert as chairman of the NJIT Board of Overseers. Herkert, who became an overseer in 1980, remains on the board as chair¬man emeritus. Serving as executive vice chairman with Rinaldi is Michael A. Wall, named to the board in 2008.
  • Pius Egbelu, a former professor of industrial engineering at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, has been named dean of the School of Management.
  • Judith Redling was named associate provost. She was formerly undergraduate program coordinator in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
  • Marino Xanthos, professor of chemical engineering, has been named associate provost for graduate studies.
  • Darius Sollohub, associate professor of architecture, was named director of the New Jersey School of Architecture. He oversees the school’s two undergraduate programs as well as graduate programs in architecture and in infrastructure planning.


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Economic Development

NJIT's Enterprise Development Center (EDC) has joined The National Alliance of Clean Energy Incubators, known as the Clean Energy Alliance, Inc. (CEA). The Clean Energy Alliance, founded in 2000 by the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is an exciting demonstration of the interest in furthering the commercial development of clean energy technologies in the United States.

EDC has also received the Soft Landings International Incubator designation from the National Business Incubator Association (NBIA), one of only 15 incubators in the world so designated. The designation signifies that the incubator offers specialized programs and facilities to assist foreign firms in breaking into new markets.


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Professional Activities

Ali Akansu, professor of electrical and computer engineering organized and chaired a special session "Signal Processing Methods for Finance Applications" at IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic. He also co-authored a paper with his PhD student Mustafa Torun entitled “Signal Processing Methods for Finance Applications” presented at the same conference.

President Robert A. Altenkirch and Greater Newark Enterprises Corporation Executive Director Michael A. Wall were honored at the Brick City Development Corporation's Recognize Newark event for their contributions to the economic development accomplishments in the City of Newark. Wall is a member of the NJIT Board of Overseers.

Denis Blackmore, professor of mathematical sciences, was appointed to the editorial boards of the Journal of Nonlinear Mathematical Physics, and Atlantis/Springer Advanced Book Series: Studies in Mathematical Physics: Theory and Applications.

Bruce Atwood, assistant professor of industrial design and a principal in POD Design + Media, had his work featured in The Showtime House, in which up-and-coming designers are selected to build a home environment inspired by a Showtime show. Atwood illustrated United States of Tara with a room constructed of wavy plywood panels assembled to look like the imagined interior of Tara’s subconscious.

Maurie Cohen and Zeyuan Qiu, both associate professors of chemistry and environmental science, were named to the newly formed Scientific Advisory Board of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Glenn Goldman, director of the School of Art + Design, was elected to the editorial board of the International Journal of Architectural Computing, published by the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA).

Marguerite Schneider, associate professor of management, has been named treasurer of the International Association for Business and Society (IABS). The IABS is a learned society devoted to research and teaching about the relationships between business, government and society.

Judith Sheft, associate vice president for technology development, and Cesar Bandera, co-founder of Cell Podium, an m-learning company located in the Enterprise Development Center, went to Lima, Peru, to train colleagues at the Universidad Inca Garcilaso de la Vega on incubator operations. NJIT has a cooperative memorandum of understanding with the university to establish an incubator.

Kamalesh Sirkar, distinguished professor of chemical engineering, has been named editor in chief of Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering, a new publication of Elsevier.

Andrzej Zarzycki, an assistant professor in NJIT's College of Architecture and Design, has been elected to the New York City chapter of the ACM/SIGGRAPH Board of Directors. ACM SIGGRAPH is the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group for computer graphics and interactive techniques.

Sotirios G. Ziavras, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Computer Architecture and Parallel Processing Laboratory at NJIT, co-chaired the 13th IEEE International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering in Hong Kong.

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