Sudiksha Sahu, a fourth-year architecture student at NJIT’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design, wanted to diversify her career options this past summer. Without prior research experience, Sahu took on the challenge to participate in the 2024 Undergraduate Summer Research and Innovation Symposium.
One critical component of delivering quality education is the provision of optimal spaces for student learning. In July of 2024, Terra Meierdierck, energy and education program manager at the Center for Building Knowledge (CBK), a research center at NJIT's Hillier College of Architecture and Design, was granted a fourth award for work with the Newark Board of Education (BOE) to support the public school district's assessment of their facilities.
University Lecturer Julio Garcia Figueroa at the Hillier College of Architecture and Design (HCAD) looks forward to teaching his course on prefabricated architecture this semester, and in the future, hopes to create a study abroad program to take HCAD students to his native Mexico.
As interim dean of NJIT’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design, Gabrielle Esperdy found ways to apply design thinking to the challenges of leading an academic college of more than 1,000 students.
Now, as she starts her first month as dean, she realizes that her background prepared her well for administration. Also, the support of President Teik C. Lim and Provost John Pelesko spurred her to be an active interim dean and ultimately apply for the job.
Industrial designer Rebecca Warga, a Bloomingdale, New Jersey native, will head to Luxembourg after graduation to work at ESMP, an experimental soft matter physics lab at the University of Luxembourg.
“I've been working with them remotely this semester, and I took a short trip out there over winter break to meet everyone and show them some of the progress I had been working on up to that point. I'm going to be working with graduate students, helping to automate some of their production and research projects.”
Tejasi Thool, a Hasbrouck, New Jersey native, looks forward to her next step in her career after completing her digital design studies at New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design.
Her next move will be to get a master’s in medical illustration. “It’s like medical diagrams, and sometimes you see them on Instagram or TikTok, an animation of a surgery that doctors do,” said Thool. “I love being an artist, and my parents always wanted me to go into the medical field.”
One summer Kenia Suarez decided to visit NJIT. The Lima, Perú native wanted to find out how she could get accepted into NJIT’s Hillier College of Architecture and Design. Little did she know that after that first visit, her career and dreams would take off.
“I went to HCAD, and there were a few professors during summer,” said Suarez. “I was very nervous because I didn't speak much English at the time, and they encouraged me to try it out. One of the professors was John Cays, and he inspired me a lot to just try it, and I did it. When I got accepted, I was over the moon.”
Following graduation from New Jersey Institute of Technology, Hilsson Angeles will start working at general contracting firm Burns & McDonnell as a construction coordinator.
What helped him get there was a tremendous work ethic, which he inherited from his parents, and an interest in both architecture and engineering. Indeed, he’s earning a dual bachelor’s in architecture and construction management technology.
When Martina Hanna ’24 started her studies at NJIT, she was a civil engineering major. But when the pandemic hit, she took a different route, one that was meant to be.
“I was just too scared to do it because I didn't have a portfolio,” Hanna explained the process of switching her major to interior design. “But during COVID I had so much free time that I actually developed one and really looked into it more. I got in, they let me change my majors. I was like, ‘amazing!’”
As she looks back to those days, she notes how the classes weren’t feeding her creative side.
The Hillier College of Architecture and Design (HCAD) hosted its Design Showcase, the college’s flagship fundraising and networking event, which provides a chance for members of the Hillier College community to connect personally and professionally. This year’s event took place in the Jewel Box of One Gateway Center in downtown Newark.
