Written by: Jesse Jenkins

After Mia LoRe walks across the stage at Commencement 2026, she’ll step right into a new career in digital forensics with the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.

This summer, LoRe will join the Bronx DA’s Digital Forensics Lab as a Digital Forensic Examiner II, examining digital evidence tied to criminal investigations.

Her role spans analyzing data recovered from phones, computers and online accounts — from text messages and call logs to social media activity and location records. The work also increasingly involves cybercrime cases tied to artificial intelligence.

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.

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named two NJIT faculty members — Cesar Bandera, master teacher and Leir Endowed Chair for Entrepreneurship, and Sara Zapico, assistant professor of forensic science — to the 2026 class of Senior Members. They are among 230 emerging academic inventors from 82 member institutions selected for demonstrated success in producing technologies that have been patented, licensed, commercialized, or possess strong potential for real-world impact. 

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.

Written by: Jesse Jenkins

Katya Cunha took the stage at Commencement 2025 amid a wave of major honors — NJIT’s Presidential Award, selection as Jordan Hu College of Science and Liberal Arts' gonfalon carrier and the sole national recipient of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors Undergraduate Award, a distinction that may now help launch her career as a forensic chemist.

Written by: Jesse Jenkins

We all know how bad smoking is for you, but what about vaping?

A new study at New Jersey Institute of technology (NJIT) led by forensic anthropologist and biochemist Sara Zapico is exploring the potential long-term health risks of e-cigarettes and how they might manifest in young adults at the genetic level, which up until now isn't fully understood.

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