New Jersey Institute of Technology and Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev officially opened a research center, the Institute for Future Technologies, located in the NJIT @JerseyCity satellite location.

Although the Institute and research there began last year, the opening ceremony only happened now due to pandemic-related delays.

It was a global cyber attack of epic proportions — but only in the best way possible for the student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the NJIT Secure Computing Initiative. The second annual NJIT JerseyCTF competition attracted participants from around the world and exceeded the target goals — and expectations — of the organizers by more than doubling the previous year’s registrations. 

NJIT hosted the ninth New Jersey Big Data Alliance Symposium, bringing together nearly 200 experts from academia, government and industry to share ideas about the present state and future trends of their field.

Attendees represented a gamut of careers, not just programmers, which the panelists said indicates that the importance of artificial intelligence, data science and machine learning applies to nearly all aspects of life in the 21st century. Many students were also present.

Crisis presents opportunity, and given the pandemic, war in Ukraine, structural racism, climate change and questions around the world’s supply of energy, food and water, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson called on the Class of 2022 at New Jersey Institute of Technology to take on such challenges with the goal of improving lives.

Pradnya Desai, a senior computer science major, made it her mission to accomplish as much as possible during her four years at NJIT, amassing an impressive resume that includes multiple awards and recognitions for her work combining technological invention with a desire to positively affect  society.

Information technology student Sam Itman has long believed that knowledge and passion for technology can open doors as “it presents a world of opportunities to those who are willing to discover them.” For Itman, these opportunities have led to an impactful internship at Optum and a cybersecurity position with the federal government.

Filing a noise complaint is a bit of a gamble. By the time an inspector arrives, the stream of trucks thundering by the night before may be long gone or the construction tools bedeviling the dinner hour turned off. In a dense soundscape, even pinpointing the worst offender can be a challenge. Was it a jackhammer or a tamping machine making that repetitive racket?

Assistant Professor Hua Wei is studying how to build more realistic models for traffic simulation, with the goal of improving predictions by closing the gap between just following traffic laws vs. how people actually drive.

That gap can be significant, so Wei is using the latest in artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning to help his cause, supported by  a $175,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation.

NJIT’s Career Development Services recognized both a graduate student and undergrad in its annual intern and co-op of the year awards.

The grad student, Pooja Kittanakere Balaji ’22, is pursuing a master’s in computer science, while the undergrad, Rivka Farrell ’23, is majoring in biology.

CDS honored Farrell for her work as a research intern at the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute during the summer of 2021, and Balaji for her role in a cooperative educational experience at Siemens Digital Industries between June and December 2021.

NJIT’s student newspaper, The Vector, continues making its journalistic voice heard — the paper is the recipient of several awards from U.S. college media contests recently.

The Vector was named the Corbin Gwaltney Award winner for “Best All-Around Student Newspaper” (among large universities) at the Society of Professional Journalists Region 1 Mark of Excellence Awards, beating out competition from the likes of Hofstra University and Boston College.