When Parsippany High School’s Kathy Effner heard about NJIT’s Center for Pre-College Programs’ (CPCP) Try Engineering! workshop for educators, she was intrigued — particularly since it featured a hands-on project at the university’s new 10,000-square-foot Makerspace. This past October she attended that event and, along with middle and high school instructors from throughout New Jersey, learned practical applications of engineering concepts before visiting the high-tech facility.
In the face of both natural and man-made threat to city infrastructure, greater pushes have been made toward the planning and design of “resilient cities” — cities positioned to protect and enhance urban life through development of components necessary to respond to terrorism, earthquakes, coastal flooding, solar flares, as well as infrastructure adoption of sustainable energy.
Traditionally, many engineers and developers of solar cell technology have turned to crystalline silicon — a tried and tested material absorber capable of efficiently converting solar radiation to electricity at just four times the thickness of a strand of hair.
At up to a 100th the thickness of a hair strand, nano-thin metal films offer an even more cost-effective and flexible material alternative, holding promise in the future development of everything from solar power to sensor technology.
This month, the work of NJIT’s top student researchers was put on display at the 2018 Knox Student Research Showcase, “A Glimpse Into the Future”.
The showcase, which annually honors outstanding research done at NJIT by its graduate and undergraduate students, awarded Najmaddin Akhundov first place among this year’s graduate researchers for developing a computational model to track and control invasive species that threaten the environment.
New Jersey Institute of Technology’s civil engineering program now ranks among “the top 10 nationally”, according to the latest data published by College Factual.
On the third floor of Fenster Hall, visitors can find a rich collection of landmark science and engineering artifacts that resemble a technological time capsule of the past 100 years. The iconic 1984 Apple Macintosh Plus, a 1950s suitcase-type Geiger counter, a 1954 wood-encased Seederer-Kohlbusch scale and 1947 Bausch & Lomb optical microscope — all historical scientific equipment once used at NJIT that is now being protected and displayed as part of university’s growing museum project, called the “NJIT Distributed Technology Museum.”
From large-scale weather or environmental disaster predictions and efficient design of vehicles and power generators, to understanding how bacteria propel themselves and how nutrients are delivered to different organs in our body at the cell level — researchers will need to find new ways of studying the complex flow of liquids, gases and plasmas that drive or characterize intricate climatic, transportation and biological systems.
