It all started with an email sent by NJIT/Albert Dorman Honors College (ADHC) alumnus, Biren Bhatt, M.D., to Louis Hamilton, ADHC dean, as the coronavirus pandemic was spreading with lightning speed throughout the New York-New Jersey area. Dr. Bhatt, an attending emergency physician at Hackensack Medical Center (HMC), asked the dean to put out a call to Dorman Scholars to design and create a prototype for a face shield, vital personal protective equipment (PPE) for health care workers.
Jenan Abu-Hakmeh’s dream career is in law and public policy, and the May 2019 graduate has got it all mapped out. An Albert Dorman Honors College alumna who majored in business with concentrations in finance and international business and minored in legal studies, she plans to attend law school, practice in the field for several years and then work perhaps as a lobbyist or in a governmental capacity.
To say that third-year biomedical engineering major Juliana Yang is busy is an understatement. In addition to staying on top of her course work, the Albert Dorman Honors College student is director of public relations for the university’s Student Senate, academic chair of the Beta Eta Chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon and publications coordinator at the Office of Student Life.
The call was put out to NJIT’s Albert Dorman Honors College (ADHC) this past spring and nine Dorman Scholars answered it. Their charge was to design and construct a tap-dance board for a handi-capable wheelchair user — a patient at Mount Sinai Health System in Manhattan who would be participating along with able-bodied dancers in the inaugural performance of the nonprofit, all-abilities dance troupe, Tap: On Tap. The performance was held at the hospital Oct.
Equipped with shovels and spades, and tape measures and topsoil, first-year Dorman Scholars gathered behind Albert Dorman Honors College (ADHC) on a sunny weekend morning in early October to plant a variety of native species: New Jersey tea, blazing star, New England aster, lady fern, butterfly milkweed and coneflower. They were beautifying the ADHC grounds to be sure, but more importantly, they were continuing a project started by last year’s first-years to increase biodiversity on the NJIT campus.
It was a timely inspiration that garnered two Honors College students a first-place hackathon win.
A unique program that packages distinctive coursework with diverse experiences, by connecting NJIT students and faculty with leading corporations, governmental agencies and private donors, has expanded as it heads into its second year. Honors Faculty Fellows will feature twice as many classes and three additional Fellows during the Spring 2020 semester, all made possible by generous gifts to the university’s Albert Dorman Honors College (ADHC), which administers the program.
One is studying computer science at NJIT, the other biomedical engineering, but they both join the university as Mayor’s Honors Scholars.
Whether they’ll be soaking up cultures abroad in the coming year or advancing research in science, health care and other fields, all of the NJIT students receiving prominent and highly competitive scholarships and fellowships in 2019 are, in a word, impressive. In fact, two university records were achieved: For the first time, an NJIT student earned the David L.
Sitting just outside the Campus Center on a sunny, breezy Tuesday afternoon, Siri Uppuluri reflects on her upcoming graduation from NJIT.
