Written by: Mindy Weisberger

Samantha Montalbine '26 always knew that she liked engineering. She was team captain of her middle-school robotics team in Brooklyn, and at Freehold Township High School she took engineering classes and served as president of the Technology Students Association.

But when Montalbine applied to New Jersey Institute of Technology's Newark College of Engineering, she was uncertain about which engineering track would be the right one for her. She ended up choosing mechanical engineering for an unconventional reason.

Written by: Jesse Jenkins

For Naketa “KET-A” Williams ’26, artificial intelligence is not just about what systems like ChatGPT can do — it is about whose stories, languages and values they carry.

That idea will soon take Williams to Jamaica as a Fulbright recipient, where she will join a national initiative advancing culturally grounded AI development.

Written by: Jesse Jenkins

On a normal day, Trooper Zoe Welch ’24 pulls out of her station and steers her cruiser along the pine-lined highways and backroads cutting through southern New Jersey. For Welch, it’s a routine patrol — but also a very different path from NJIT peers who graduated with STEM degrees alongside her just over a year ago.

In fact, Welch is the first graduate of NJIT’s forensic science program to join the exclusive ranks of New Jersey’s State Police.

Written by: Michael Giorgio

Girlhacks 2025 continued its legacy of providing a place for women and non-binary students in technology to take the lead in bringing ideation to realization through its annual 24-hour Major League Hacking (MLH) sanctioned hackathon where everyone — including the men — are invited to compete.

Written by: Michael Giorgio

Vibha Venkataraman ’26 (Data Science) and Tina Thai ’26 (Computer Science), two students in NJIT’s Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC) and both Albert Dorman Honors College scholars, will have added their respective first and second place wins during this year’s Bank of America (BOA) Codeathon to an already impressive list of achievements when they graduate in May.

Written by: Jesse Jenkins

For more than a year, Ray Wooden sat in a Pennsylvania jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Now, he’s free after two recent graduates and a current student of NJIT’s forensic science program uncovered key digital evidence that helped clear his name.

Wooden’s ordeal began in January 2024, after he tipped off police about a woman involved in a local home invasion, which led to the arrest of the woman and her boyfriend, who was found illegally carrying a firearm but later released on bail.

Danna Valentina Sanchez Hernandez’s path to becoming a researcher began long before she arrived at NJIT. Growing up in Colombia, she developed an early fascination with science by attending medical conferences alongside her parents — both physicians — and learning about clinical trials and biological research. But her passion for biomedical engineering didn’t crystallize until she enrolled in dual-enrollment courses at Universidad CES.

Written by: Jesse Jenkins

The average person is estimated to consume up to a credit card's worth of plastic particles each week. However, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) undergrad Allison Harbolic is now uncovering the effects that our regular intake of nano-sized plastics can have at a critical stage of life — during pregnancy.

Harbolic's latest research into how nanoplastics impact placental health recently won her prestigious honors from the Society of Toxicology (SOT), an international scientific organization with members from more than 60 countries.

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