When Saly Tanyous ’26 walks across the stage at NJIT this spring, she won’t just be accepting her degree, she’ll be celebrating a journey marked by resilience, discovery and the courage to find her true path in engineering.

Born in Egypt, Tanyous moved to the United States in sixth grade and settled in Jersey City with her family. The transition was difficult. As a child who excelled in her Egyptian classrooms, she was suddenly navigating a new culture, a new language and the fear of falling short. “I used to cry every day, worried about failing,” she recalled. 

Scholarships help many students get to college, but for Jonathan Kozlik a scholarship to New Jersey Institute of Technology led him to a technical conference in Florida, where he found inspiration to form his own company testing the security of other people’s artificial intelligence applications.

There are currently over 13,000 unsolved forensic cases aiming to identify unknown human remains in the U.S. alone (NamUs, 2025), but NJIT graduate researcher Maria Castagnola is helping pioneer new DNA-based forensic methods that may one day lead to breakthroughs.

At New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), the path to STEM achievement often begins long before college. Through its nationally recognized Center for Pre-College Programs (CPCP), the university engages students in grades 4–12 each year — many from Newark and other historically underserved communities — with academic enrichment designed to spark discovery, cultivate leadership and build confidence in the next generation of scientists, engineers, designers and innovators.

How do organisms adapt — or fail to adapt — to dramatic environmental changes, particularly those caused by human activity?

It’s a question driving Brock Shahinian’s research at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), leading to two of the nation’s most prestigious undergraduate honors: a 2025 Goldwater Scholarship and distinction as NJIT’s first-ever Udall Scholar.

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.

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.

The 36th Annual Scholarship Brunch at New Jersey Institute of Technology celebrated a significant milestone this year, welcoming its largest gathering of students and benefactors to date. Donors from across the region and as far away as Sweden convened, united by a shared commitment to empowering the next generation of leaders and innovators at NJIT. 

Goldwater Scholarships, among the most prestigious awards for undergraduate students pursuing STEM degrees, are going to two juniors at NJIT. 

The recipients are: Dev Doshi, a biomedical engineering major in the Newark College of Engineering; and Brock Shahinian, an environmental science major in the Jordan Hu College of Science and Liberal Arts.

NJIT’s forensics program made an impression at the 77th Annual American Academy of Forensic Sciences’ Conference in Baltimore’s Convention Center, unveiling new research and innovations that tackled this year’s conference theme, “Technology: A Tool for Transformation or Tyranny?”