As part of the 2022 Homecoming festivities, New Jersey Institute of Technology held a ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Lenda and Vince Naimoli ’62, ’09 HON Turf Room. 

Lenda Naimoli and her sister Glenda Young, President Teik C. Lim and First Lady Gina Lim, President Emeritus Joel S. Bloom and First Lady Emerita Diane Bloom, Athletic Director Leonard Kaplan, Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations Ken Alexo, athletics staff and student-athletes were among the attendees. 

NJIT computer science alumna Hang Nguyen, the first in her family to attend college, started her full-time career as a Google software engineer based on her ability to quickly absorb new skills. 

Nguyen grew up in central Vietnam, learned English and the outdated Pascal programming language in a school for gifted children, and ultimately chose to pursue her dream of not only obtaining a college degree but doing so in the United States.

When it comes to diversity, Ken Colao leads by example.

More than a third of the 90 staffers ­— 38% — at his construction management company, CNY Group, is Black, Indigenous or other people of color (BIPOC). Also, in an industry not known for gender balance, women comprise nearly a third of the staff and have earned 62% of the promotions in the past three years. 

On May 4, celebratory glasses were raised at the signature year-end awards ceremony for NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts (CSLA), where the incredible milestone of the college’s 40th anniversary served as backdrop to the festivities.

NJIT’s annual alumni weekend is a two-day extravaganza that is filled to the brim with events for returning NJIT graduates. One event in particular recognizes a select group of alumni who have achieved profound professional success: the Alumni Achievement Awards.

Scholarships enabled Jennifer Cabral and Dominic Bosi to overcome financial hurdles and study science and engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Cabral and Bosi are both first-generation students from working-class families. As such, they needed help to afford college. Generous donors supplied that, and once enrolled, they found their callings and are pursuing them with passion.

NJIT’s Education Opportunity Program (EOP) recently hosted a marquee conference with over 100 attendees that brought together students, alumni and industry leaders. The conference featured speakers, panel discussions and Q&As regarding challenges and opportunities in the modern workplace and ways to provide benefits for first-generation college students.

Dick Sweeney, the Highlander alumnus and engineer who made Keurig coffee machines feasible, visited NJIT's Albert Dorman Honors College last week for his first meet-and-greet with students since the COVID pandemic.

Sweeney graduated with an industrial management degree in 1982 after several years of taking night classes and attributed his success to persistence, good luck and constantly hiring smart people. He is chair emeritus of the Honors College Board of Visitors.

As Black History Month comes to a close, we celebrate several NJIT alumni who have made their mark as Highlanders. Read their stories below, and submit your own!

Business school alumnus Tomi Antoljak wants to do for online relationships what NBC's The Voice did for singing competitions.

People using his new mobile app, Hangoo, talk first — and then only get to see each other if there's a match.

"My belief really is that voice is the more authentic way to communicate," said Antoljak, who in 2019 earned a B.S. in business with a concentration in financial technology from NJIT's Martin Tuchman School of Management. He was also a member of Albert Dorman Honors College.