Students won the Real World Impact award at New Jersey Institute of Technology’s spring 2026 Artificial Intelligence Exploration Day not for what they built, but for how they built it.

The team of Bartek Broclawik, Matthew Sudol, Pola Szwaczka and Om Vaghasiya knew that autonomous vehicles are an established technology. Yet in designing one of their own, in the form of a toy-sized model, they employed heavy use of AI to develop it and created a trail of lessons for anyone in the NJIT community to learn.

The spirit of innovation and hands-on learning was in full force at the Newark College of Engineering's (NCE) annual First-Year Engineering Design Showcase, a highlight of National Engineers Week. This popular event, a testament to NJIT's commitment to early-stage practical engineering experience, saw NCE’s brightest first-year minds — 180 presenters on 51 teams — show their innovative projects.

New Jersey Institute of Technology Professors Vivek Kumar and Xuan Liu have been named as Senior Members in the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) 2025 class. They join 162 emerging academic inventors from 64 NAI Member Institutions across the nation recognized for their outstanding contributions to innovation.

Kumar, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and Liu, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, are part of the largest class to date, collectively holding over 1,200 U.S. patents.

Artificial intelligence is transforming our world in ways that spark curiosity, excitement and concern. Sanmi Koyejo ’05, assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University and founder and president of Black in AI, explored its profound impact across various domains, addressing pressing questions about the technology’s societal implications.

Daniel Vargas ‘15, a systems safety engineer at Nvidia, is at the forefront of one of the most exciting and transformative fields in technology—autonomous vehicles. With a career that began in aerospace and defense, Vargas — who graduated with a degree in electrical engineering — has now transitioned into the tech world, where he ensures that Nvidia’s cutting-edge innovations are safe, reliable and compliant.