NJIT launches careers, helps commercialize research and forges international partnerships, making it a key driver in New Jersey’s success. The university’s research and educational innovation can be felt across the state
— and far beyond. Highlanders are interested in using technology to improve lives, while making sure the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs are prepared to take on the future. NJIT educates about a
third of all engineers and scientists in New Jersey and fuels more than $2.8 billion annually in business and economic activity statewide.
NJIT’s Sustainable Environmental and Nanointerfaces Laboratory is just one example of a campus program with far-reaching impact. With funding from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the lab’s director, Professor Wen Zhang, is working to solve a growing problem facing hundreds of lakes in the Garden State. There are roughly 1,900 large lakes in New Jersey, and all of them are vulnerable to toxic algae blooms. Zhang hopes new technology could make fighting these phosphorescent blue-green clusters easier. He’s working with a team of biologists, engineers and entrepreneurs on technology to inject micro- and nanobubbles of air into lakes, lifting algae from as deep as four feet and scooping it out.
In addition to the state, Zhang and his team are working with the Meadowlands Research and Restoration Institute and BRISEA Inc., an environmental company, to demonstrate their prototype’s effectiveness in clearing algae.
Photos:
Left: Wen Zhang tests nano- and microbubble technology.
Right: Brian Wlodawski, senior geographic information systems specialist, goes for a test-run on the Hackensack River in a prototype of a custom-designed boat that uses technology to remove algae blooms.
A Roadmap for NJ Policy Makers
Another new project aims to help lower-income homeowners take advantage of the state’s clean energy programs. NJIT launched a community outreach project (with a year-long study of under-resourced neighborhoods in Newark) toward the adoption of renewable energy. It encourages people to engage in N.J.’s Community Solar Program — a key initiative in the state’s goal of reaching 100 percent clean energy by 2050. Results from the study will also aim to provide a broader “sustainability roadmap” for N.J. policymakers to enhance energy justice throughout the state.
Led by Yao Sun, assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, the $30,000 study is one of 10 projects to receive funding from the New Jersey State Policy Lab of Rutgers University; it’s administered by the Office of the Secretary of Higher Education.
“As climate change intensifies the severity of weather-related disasters, it is imperative to ensure both community and environmental equity when designing and implementing energy and climate policies,” said Sun. “It is important to provide households with opportunities to voice their thoughts and concerns, actively engage in shaping the community solar program, and collaborate with policymakers to improve energy justice.”
This work dovetails with the state’s recent commitments to the Clean Energy Act outlined in the New Jersey Energy Master Plan: Pathway to 2050, which includes developing a community solar program that allows more residents “to benefit from solar energy, especially low- and moderate-income families.”
Photo:
Left to right: Professors Zeyuan Qiu, Yao Sun, Maurie Cohen, with undergraduate research assistants Tai Vu and Sania Murtuza.
Helping Neighbors
Hope Village I, a 28-unit project, has placed over 50 formerly homeless people into permanent housing in Newark since it opened in 2021. The project sparked the interest of Hillier College of Architecture and Design (HCAD) professors of practice Erin Pellegrino and Charlie Firestone, along with their students. In January, the city opened Hope Village II, with the complex featuring a reimagined welcome booth designed and built entirely by NJIT students.
Newark launched its first homelessness strategic plan in late 2022 and in its first year saw a 57.6% decrease in the unsheltered population, according to the state’s Department of Community Affairs.
In Fall 2022, HCAD students in the studio class designed a community of dwellings that could offer more services, amenities and comfort than the original Hope Village. At the opening of the latest complex, Mayor Ras Baraka — who has called those designs “brilliant, beautiful, efficient and effective” — thanked NJIT’s engagement in the strategic plan and announced that Hope Village III will be designed and built by NJIT architectural students.
Many Highlanders also volunteer locally. Students from the Albert Dorman Honors College do at least 60 hours of service per year, half of them off campus. More than 14,000 off-campus volunteer hours are performed annually in Newark, with a focus on education, biodiversity/sustainability, public health and emergency aid.
Photos:
Left: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka with HCAD students during the launch of Hope Village II
Right: Student volunteers help clean up Branch Brook Park in Newark.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Three years after NJIT’s New Jersey Innovation Institute launched BioCentriq, a cell and gene therapy company, it was bought in 2022 by a South Korean company — but its operation remains local.
BioCentriq was formed in collaboration with leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, top regulators at federal agencies that oversee biologic therapies and state economic development officials. It was the first such enterprise in the nation backed by a university. Its mission is to accelerate the advancement of cell and gene therapies by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing processes and technologies.
NJII President Michael Johnson said BioCentriq is a perfect example of how NJII and NJIT spur innovation. “We’re having a very significant impact on New Jersey’s economy,” he said.
Meanwhile, many NJIT students go on to start their own businesses. Martin Tuchman School of Management Dean Oya Tukel notes that the university has given over $4 million in funding to startups created by students.
Photo:
Right: Life Sciences and Engineering building
A Better Quality of Life
With new funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), NJIT sees a future where it will be able to translate more science and engineering discoveries into market-ready technologies. Research that improves lives will be supported with a $6 million NSF grant awarded by the agency’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships.
“NJIT’s goal is to become a regional leader in research translation,” said Atam Dhawan, senior vice provost for research and the grant’s principal investigator. “We have many game-changing technologies in the pipeline that are on the cusp of commercialization. This grant provides crucial backing for these projects.”
Photo:
Right: Members of the NJIT National Society of Black Engineers gather at an event on campus.
Modernizing Health Records for the Most Vulnerable
By Tracey Regan
Over a decade ago, an NJIT health care startup took up a daunting challenge: to train 5,000 primary care providers in the state to adopt electronic health record systems that would allow them to better track their patients, improve the quality of care and securely share information.
The federal government, which funded the $50 million effort, had identified cumbersome and sometimes illegible paper records as one of the health care system’s principal vulnerabilities. The group, NJ-HITEC, ultimately trained people at 7,500 facilities.
Years later, at the request of the state, a successor organization at NJIT is plugging a gap in that initiative: modernizing record-keeping systems for one of the most complex and vulnerable segments of the patient population — people with substance use disorders.
“This is a severely siloed system. The aim is to integrate it and enable interoperability so that facilities can share information,” noted Renu Tadepalli, who runs the program for the health care division of the university’s New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII). A primary goal is to reduce opioid abuse, but treatment centers say their new systems also allow them to keep better track of patients’ overall health and to respond quickly to crises.
By connecting with the New Jersey Health Information Network, an electronic exchange of patient health information run by NJII, treatment centers receive alerts, for example, when a patient checks into a facility or a doctor orders a new prescription.
“We’re able to see when a patient is in and out of the hospital and what they were admitted for,” said Katy Linton, CEO and facility administrator of Greater Essex Counseling Services in downtown Newark.
With funding from the New Jersey Department of Health and the New Jersey Department of Human Services for both the systems and the training, NJII has so far enrolled 110 facilities in the program.