Among the honorees at this year’s College of Science and Liberal Arts Awards at NJIT were seven members of the Class of 2021 who earned the Outstanding Undergraduate Award. We caught up with four of them, who reflected on their unique experiences and accomplishments over the past four years and shared their bright future plans.

Bhoomi Davé, Forensic Science B.S. and Biology B.A.

A generous scholarship enabled Charu Arya to attend New Jersey Institute of Technology, and her professors helped solidify her career path. Indeed, both financial assistance and academic support fueled her success.

Arya ’21 reflected on that fruitful journey during NJIT’s annual Scholarship Brunch, sharing a pivotal moment during her sophomore year when she reconsidered her initial decision to study medicine. 

All-time highs in freshman applicants are being reported this year at NJIT’s College of Science and Liberal Arts (CSLA), according to the university’s latest admissions report for fall 2021.

NJIT’s Office of Admissions says CSLA’s freshman applicants this year (approximately 2,500) have risen more than 15% from 2020 and 25% compared to pre-pandemic totals in 2019 (1,850).

This March 23-25, New Jersey Institute of Technology is set to join the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey (ACDL-NJ) and New Jersey State Office of the Public Defender (NJOPD) in co-hosting the 2021 Forensic Science Summit for the Criminal Defense Bar — the leading annual forensic science conference for New Jersey’s defense attorneys and investigators.

The three-day virtual event, via Zoom, promises a unique venue for exploring the rapidly evolving world of forensic science that is shaping criminal defense proceedings in courtrooms today.

Where were you the night of Nov. 26th?

Anyone exiting the Summit Street parking garage that evening would have most certainly been counted among the witnesses to a brightly-lit, taped-off scene surrounding a faded-white ’98 Chevy Lumina where an investigation was underway — carried out by a special unit of NJIT’s own CSI students-in-training.

Walking through NJIT’s green spaces and residence hall courtyards Labor Day week, it’s not uncommon to hear pockets of conversation burst to life among the campus’s bright-eyed freshman newcomers, often of the different roads they’ve traveled to begin their collegiate journeys here at the start of the fall semester.

Among them is Julia Lizik. A four-hour drive up I-95 with her mother from their home in Frederick, Maryland, was Lizik’s road to NJIT, though the reasons behind her arrival are part of a rather new academic experience at the university. 

In 2012, CBS’s crime-fiction television drama, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” reached the zenith of primetime television ratings. That year, the show’s estimated 63 million viewers across five continents earned it the title of “most watched television show in the world” for the fifth time in the show’s history at the Monte Carlo Television Festival. 

This month, NJIT’s forensic science program welcomed David Fisher — an expert criminalist previously with New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) — to its faculty ranks.

The announcement sees Fisher appointed as the university’s first-ever “Professor of Practice in Forensic Science” — a position expected to play a leading role in educating the program’s students in current lab techniques and crime scene investigation methods used by active forensic science professionals today.

Recently, NJIT announced that this fall it will begin offering New Jersey’s first Bachelor of Science program in forensic science. This first-of-its-kind degree program will fulfill a critically important and unmet need for New Jersey’s students and its forensic science community.

The 120-credit degree will represent the only undergraduate program in the New York metropolitan region designed from its outset to meet the rigorous standards set by the leading accrediting body in this important field, the Forensic Science Education Programs Accreditation Commission (FEPAC).