Alumni Achievement Awards 2026

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Michael Gottlieb is a chemical engineer, entrepreneur, and the founder of ResinTech, a premier U.S. manufacturer of ion exchange resins and water purification systems. His passion for science began in Newark, New Jersey, inspired by his father's customer-first philosophy and a fascination with physical chemistry. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Newark College of Engineering (now NJIT) in 1963.

After more than two decades of industry experience, Gottlieb founded ResinTech in 1986. The business started humbly in his family’s Cherry Hill basement, where he analyzed resin samples in the kitchen and blended materials using a rented cement mixer. Alongside his wife, Lynne, he grew the company from these modest beginnings into a global industry leader. In 2020, ResinTech opened a state-of-the-art headquarters and manufacturing plant in Camden, New Jersey—the first new ion exchange resin facility built in North America in nearly 50 years.

Today, ResinTech remains a proud family-owned and operated enterprise. Gottlieb’s sons, Jeffrey and Larry, have joined the business to scale operations while honoring their father's core principles of quality, transparency, and domestic manufacturing.

A dedicated alumnus of NJIT and a passionate advocate for American manufacturing, Gottlieb attributes his success to continuous curiosity, rigorous problem-solving, and respect-driven relationships. His visionary leadership and decades of innovation have left an indelible mark on the water treatment industry.

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A proud NJIT alumna, Stacey Ruhle Kliesch, AIA, CID, LEED AP, is Principal of Stacey Ruhle Kliesch, Architect, LLC, where she leads a practice dedicated to thoughtful design, community engagement, and lasting impact. With more than 25 years of professional experience, Stacey brings creative vision, technical excellence, and a deep commitment to the mission of architecture as a force for good.

Stacey’s leadership extends far beyond her practice. A tireless volunteer and advocate, she has devoted her career to advancing the profession, strengthening communities, and opening doors for the next generation. She has held numerous leadership roles, including serving as President of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) New Jersey and the AIA Architects League of Northern New Jersey (ALNNJ). As Founder and Chair of AIA New Jersey’s Equity in Architecture Committee, she champions equity, diversity, and inclusion as essential to the future of our profession and has presented her best practices on the subject to a national audience of AIA Leaders.

Mentoring and education are central to Stacey’s service. For more than three decades, she has taught, lectured, mentored, and served as a design juror at colleges, universities, and K-12 schools, including NJIT’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design. She advises high school STEAM and architecture programs, mentors scholarship recipients, and works to inspire the next generation of architects—particularly young women—to envision themselves as future designers and leaders. Kliesch has designed training workshops for fellow members to deliver charrettes to engage young people with the design of the built environment. Her work in this area was recognized with a national award for its ability to inspire interest in architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) careers. Today, Stacey is a contributing writer, speaker and mentor for the national AIA K-12 Pathways program and has been a recipient of multiple grants to continue developing and providing content to thousands of young people every year.

Her service and leadership have earned numerous honors, including the AIA NJ Distinguished Service Award, Young Architect of the Year, and ALNNJ Community Service Award. Through professional leadership, volunteer service, advocacy, and mentorship, Stacey exemplifies a lifelong commitment to architecture, equity, education, and the communities the profession serves.

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Gary is co-founder and CTO of Cerebras Systems. He is widely recognized as one of the industry's leading computer architects. Prior to Cerebras, Gary was co-founder and CTO of SeaMicro, where his inventions helped pioneer the microserver category. While at SeaMicro, Gary was the Principal Investigator for a $9.3 Million US Department of Energy grant for energy-efficient computing. Following Seamicro's acquisition by AMD, Gary was a Corporate Fellow and CTO for the server and server-CPU business units. Earlier in his career, Gary was a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, where he was Chief Microprocessor Architect for the UltraSPARC III and UltraSPARC IV microprocessors. At Sun Laboratories, he was Chief Architect of the DARPA HPCS Petascale computing project. Gary holds more than 50 patents.

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Dr. Okojie received the BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, between 1992 and 1996. While in graduate school, he was a senior research scientist of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) at Kulite Semiconductor Products, Inc., Leonia, NJ, from 1993 to 1997. He was a senior engineer at Ford Microelectronics, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO, between December 1997 and June 1999, developing MEMS-based sensors and smart fuel injectors. In August 1999, Dr. Okojie joined NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, developing silicon carbide (SiC) MEMS-based sensor technologies for extreme environments (High temperature, radiation, and aggressive chemical media) with focus on integrated pressure/temperature sensors, contact metallization, and advanced packaging. He is a leading expert in SiC, a 2020 inductee of the NASA Inventors Hall of Fame and recipient of numerous NASA awards. He was the Associate Principal Investigator of the Experimental Capabilities of the NASA Hypersonic Project of the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, and until April 2026 the Instrumentation and Controls Lead of the Lunar Fission Surface Power Project of the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. He holds over 20 patents relating to high temperature MEMS technologies. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and published over 25 peer reviewed papers and a contributing author to the CRC MEMS Handbook. At NASA, he has mentored over twenty undergraduate and graduate students from various US universities. Dr. Okojie actively supports scholarship programs for elementary and high school students from economically disadvantaged families in Nigeria. He is a proud father of five young men and a grandfather of two.