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Faculty Members Promoted

The Board of Trustees approved the promotion of 15 faculty members and recommended three others for tenure without change in rank.

Promoted to distinguished professor were Piero Armenante, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Environmental Science; and Richard B. Sher, chair of the Federated History Department.

Haimin Wang, Physics, was promoted to professor with tenure.

Promoted to professor were James Geller, Computer and Information Science; Jay Meegoda, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Somenath Mitra, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry and Environmental Science; Mark Somers, School of Management; Jason Wang, Computer and Information Science; and MengChu Zhou, Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Promoted to associate professor with tenure were Lisa Axe, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Nancy Coppola, Humanities and Social Sciences; Taha Marhaba, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Kwabena Albert Narh, Mechanical Engineering; Arijit Sengupta, Engineering Technology; and Trevor Tyson, Physics.

Fadi Deek, Computer and Information Science; Dale Gary, Physics; and Michael Recce, Computer and Information Science; were recommended for tenure without change in rank.

Promoted To Distinguished Professor

• Armenante joined the faculty, in 1984, as an assistant professor. He has earned a distinguished international reputation for his research in multiphase mixing phenomena and biodegradation of hazardous wastes. Armenante is one of the founding members of the North American Mixing Forum and director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Northeast Hazardous Substance Research Center. In 1983, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia

• Sher is internationally known as the author and editor of dozens of books, chapters, articles and reviews on the Scottish Enlightenment. Considered by his peers to be the driving force in his field, Sher was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. In 1979, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Promoted To Professor With Tenure

• Wang joined NJIT, in 1995, as an assistant professor after obtaining his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology, in 1988. In 1997, due to his outstanding contributions to the department and the university in the areas of teaching, research and service, he was promoted to associate professor. In 1996, he was awarded the prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. Wang also is the associate director of the Center for Solar Research, which oversees both the Big Bear Solar Observatory and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory.

Promoted To Professor

• Geller joined the university, in 1988, as an assistant professor after receiving his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research interests are in artificial intelligence with a focus on implemented computational intelligence, where he combines solid theoretical foundations, feasible implementations and practical applications.

• Meegoda began his career at NJIT, in 1985, after receiving a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Davis. He is known internationally for his research in the mechanics of geo-environmental engineering, where he utilizes scientific concepts and engineering technologies in real-world applications.

• Mitra joined the faculty, in 1991, as an assistant professor after receiving his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry, in 1988, from Southern Illinois University. His innovative research to develop continuous online monitoring techniques, pulse introduction membrane extraction and analytical instruments on a microchip has received national attention.

• Somers received a Ph.D. in Business from the City University of New York, in 1987. He is a highly productive researcher and has made a significant contribution in work attitudes and behavior, work design and research methods in organizational behavior. Somers has assumed a proactive role in all aspects of the School of Management, including curriculum development and new programs for the MBA, in the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation process and in distance education. Somers has served on many university-level committees, most recently on the Provost’s Cabinet.

• Wang joined NJIT, in 1991, as an assistant professor after receiving his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He has built a strong reputation as a researcher in data mining and databases, pattern analysis, computational biology and information retrieval on the Internet.

• Zhou has a joint appointment in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and Department of Computer and Information Science. He is a very active researcher in the theory of Petri nets and its application to manufacturing systems. He received a Ph.D. in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before joining NJIT in 1990.

Promoted To Associate Professor

• Axe has attained a national research identity through her work in physio-chemical interactions between contaminants, soil and groundwater. The receipt of the prestigious DuPont Young Professor Grant recognized the importance of her research. She is the department’s technical link with other academic departments and centers at the university involved in environmental research and education, stemming from her background, which includes degrees in both science and engineering. She joined the university, in 1995, after receiving a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology.

• Coppola has contributed significant scholarship in technical communication, environmental rhetoric and technology enhanced teaching and learning. She has achieved an enviable She has achieved an enviable record of sustained quality work that has made her one of the leaders in technical communication. In 1983, she received a D.A. in English from Syracuse University. She first joined NJIT as a special lecturer, in 1984, and, in 1995, was appointed assistant professor.

• Marhaba received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University, in 1993, and, in 1995, joined NJIT as an assistant professor after working as an environmental engineer for several years. His research has made significant contributions to understanding how to furnish quality drinking water to an expanding population. He has pioneered a new technique for spectral fluorescent analysis. He also founded the student chapter of the American Water Works Association, the first in the nation.

• Narh joined NJIT in 1994. His research interests encompass plastics engineering and processing, which is directed toward understanding the interrelationships between product properties and process parameters to develop models that can be used to predict these relationships. He received a Ph.D. in Polymer Physics, in 1982, from the University of Bristol, Bristol, England.

• Sengupta has a joint appointment with he Department of Engineering Technology and Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. In 1995, he received a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the Technical University of Nova Scotia. He has been actively involved in several theoretical and applied research areas of anthropometric modeling and evaluation of workspace for industrial workstation design, AutoCAD-based human modeling, occupational safety and health training, SAP University Alliance Program, human factors in Web page design and logistics problems in warehousing and distribution of perishable goods.

• Tyson obtained his Ph.D., in 1991, from Stanford University. After winning a Stanford University Postdoctoral Fellowship, he worked for the prestigious Instituto Nazionale de Fisica Nucleare in Frascati, Italy, where he conducted independent postdoctoral research in both theoretical and experimental atomic and molecular spectroscopy. He also was a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow and received the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award. In 1996, he joined NJIT as an assistant professor and has integrated his research with major national laboratories. His research focuses on understanding the fundamental physics of magnetic and superconducting materials by developing and utilizing both experimental and theoretical synchrotron based X-ray methods.

Tenure Without Change In Rank

• Deek began his association with NJIT as a student in computer science and has since served the university in many key administrative roles in the department while continuing his education. In 1997, he earned his Ph.D. from NJIT and was appointed to the faculty as associate professor. His research is in the areas of computer science education, software engineering, programming environments, problem solving, cognition and learning theory, Web-based learning and tools, and multimedia systems. His most important theoretical contribution is the dual common model, which integrates problem solving theory and software engineering methods with an explicit view of the cognitive skills and techniques required to support these methods. He is a recent recipient of NJIT Overseer’s Public and Institute Service Award and several teaching awards. He has been described as a multi-talented, dynamic and very productive faculty member.

• Gary obtained his Ph.D., in 1982, from the University of Colorado, Boulder. In 1997, he joined NJIT as an associate professor after he had established a major research program in solar radio physics at Caltech at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory. His research interests are solar physics and phenomena of the atmosphere of the sun and solar-like stars, including solar/stellar flares, sunspots, active regions, filaments and prominences. He is currently leading an effort to define a new solar ground-based radio telescope that would be a major national facility.

•Recce is a faculty member in the Department of Computer and Information Science, the Department of Mathematical Sciences and the NJIT-Rutgers Federated Biological Sciences Department. He joined NJIT, in 1997, as an associate professor after having been at University College, in London, where, in 1994, he received his Ph.D. in Neurophysiology. He also worked at Intel Corporation as a product engineering manager. His unique background has led to a wide ranging, interdisciplinary area of research, which currently has been to reverse engineer the function of the biological mechanisms involved in navigation and motor control. His most important contribution to date is in laboratory neuroscience, where he discovered that the central nervous system uses the temporal pattern of neuronal activity to encode and transmit information to other neurons.

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