NJIT Magazine / Fall 2010

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reach new therapies for Stroke Patients Helping stroke survivors regain vital abilities

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Meet ian Gatley Physicist and imaging pioneer is NJIT’s new provost

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Executive Summary

A Message from NJIT President Robert A. Altenkirch

“ The horizon leans forward, offering you space to place new steps of change.” — Maya Angelou Many horizons offering the potential for positive change beckon at a university.

At NJIT, an institution focused on science and technology, there are opportunities to advance research and knowledge in a wide range of disciplines, including physics.

For this issue, NJIT Magazine interviewed Ian Gatley, NJIT’s recently appointed provost, senior vice president for academic affairs and distinguished professor of physics.

Dr. Gatley speaks about the personal excitement he experienced as part of the team that pioneered infrared imaging technology that has yielded a wealth of astronomical information. He emphasizes that every student, in every discipline, should have the opportunity for research experiences that are equally exciting and fulfilling.

The feature about the work of Sergei Adamovich, associate professor of biomedical engineering, looks toward a research horizon very different from the distant reaches of our galaxy. Along with students and colleagues, and with major support from the National Institutes of Health, he is developing innovative therapies intended to help stroke patients regain greater use of their arms and hands. In addition to assessing how individuals who volunteer for this research improve with respect to their range of movement, Professor Adamovich and his team are investigating the brain’s responses to a therapeutic strategy that integrates game-like exercises in virtual environments.

NJIT’s evolving engagement with the City of Newark presents yet another opportunity for accomplishing significant change. Continuing physical improvements on campus are integral to the educational and civic commitments initiated with the founding of Newark Technical School well over a century ago. The Abstracts section of this issue includes the news that NJIT has completed acquisition of the Central High School building located between Fenster and Campbell Halls. Although Central High School students have moved to a new location, we continue to have a strong partnership with the school, continuing many of the relationships and initiatives that existed when we were neighbors, as we do with the Newark community at large. Acquisition of this historic building anchors NJIT even more firmly in the life of its host city.

In the classroom and in the laboratory, the horizons of possibility are numerous and diverse at NJIT. The challenge is to persist in taking all the steps necessary toward translating the possibility of beneficial change into reality.

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N J I T M a g a z in e Fall 2010 Jean M. Llewellyn Executive Director University Communications Dean L. Maskevich Editor Christina Crovetto MS ’03 Assistant Editor Babette Hoyle Production Coordinator Skelton Design Design Editorial Advisory Board Joel Bloom, Robert A. Boynton, Charles R. Dees, Jr., E. Perry Deess, Kirstie Gentleman, Kathryn Kelly, Carol Pilla, Jacquelynn G. Rhodes, Henry Ross, Anita Rubino ’83, Steven Saperstein ’84, Michele Scott ’93, Donald H. Sebastian, Nancy Steffen-Fluhr, Sheryl Weinstein NJIT Magazine is published by New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Communications. Its mission is to foster ties with alumni, university friends and corporate partners and to report on relevant issues, particularly those in education, science, research and technology.

Visit us on the web at http://magazine.njit.edu Please send letters of comment and requests to reproduce material from NJIT Magazine to: NJIT Magazine University Communications University Heights Newark, NJ 07102-1982 Dean.Maskevich@njit.edu Robert A. Altenkirch President Charles R. Dees, Jr. Vice President University Advancement Robert A. Boynton Executive Director Alumni Relations

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Features pag e 10

Within Reach: New Therapies for Stroke Patients Researchers are developing rehabilitation techniques to help stroke patients regain greater use of their fingers, hands and arms. page 14

Meet Ian Gatley Distinguished physicist and educator, NJIT’s new provost has worked on the frontier of astronomical imaging. page 18

d e pa rt m e n t s 2 Abstracts

NJIT news in brief 8 p oint by point

Athletics update 9 g iving

NJIT development news 21 a lumni circuit

Class notes, alumni calendar, and more 3 3 at the edge

Leading-edge achievements by faculty, staff, students, alumni

Commencement 2010 New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno endorsed embracing the unexpected.

The gargoyle above is one of the Gothic architectural touches on the Central High School building recently acquired by NJIT. NJIT MAGAZINE

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abstracts

NJIT has begun renovation of Central High, where classes were first held in 1912.

Historic school Building now part of NJIT NJIT gained much-needed space for classrooms and other uses in June when ownership of the Central High School building at the eastern edge of the campus passed to the university.

Photo: John Micale

Acquisition of the large structure had been initiated in 2008, when NJIT entered into a Sale and Purchase Agreement with the Newark Public Schools. All high school students have been

Presidential Community Service Honor for NJIT The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, an annual recognition program that celebrates exemplary commitment to service and volunteering by institutions of higher education, has added NJIT to its ranks. The university was recognized for implementing three

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community service programs in 2009 under the auspices of NJIT’s Division of Career Development Services. They were the Wachovia/NJDCA Housing and Community Development Scholars Program, the Civic Engagement Computer Center@NJIT (CECC@NJIT), and the NJIT “Community of Caring” Campaign.

The Wachovia/NJDCA initiative is a partnership between NJIT, The Wachovia Foundation, and the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. During

relocated to new facilities in Newark, and NJIT has begun renovation of Central High, where classes were first held in 1912.

NJIT’s initial use of the building, which incorporates Jacobean and Gothic architectural features, will be for classrooms on the second floor. In addition to the installation of sprinkler and fire alarm systems, immediate improvements will include smart-classroom technology, new telecom and computer networks, and upgrades for lighting and temperature control.

The next issue of NJIT Magazine will include a feature on the progress of renovation at Central High and how this historic building will be integrated into the campus in keeping with the university’s Landscape Master Plan. n

2009, 37 student scholars from NJIT and five other New Jersey schools assisted 29 non-profit agencies throughout the state with affordable housing, community development, neighborhood revitalization, and economic development. The student-managed Civic Engagement Computer Center provides technical computer support for community agencies.

The “Community of Caring” Campaign challenges the NJIT community to provide at least 10,000 hours of service each year to the people of New Jersey. n

“ We are all proud of Dr. Lanzerotti’s continued contributions to fundamental and applied science and technology.”

NJIT Provost Ian Gatley

Lanzerotti Leads Car Acceleration Probe Louis J. Lanzerotti, distinguished research professor in the Department of Physics, will lead the 16-member panel organized by the National Research Council of the National Academies to identify possible causes of unintended vehicle acceleration in the aftermath of Toyota’s large recalls.

The group, which held its first

Visit NJIT Magazine online at http://magazine.njit.edu for links to more information about topics in this issue.

Lanzerotti is a retired Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies, where his responsibilities included supervision of laboratories and research and development. His research interests include space plasmas, geophysics, and engineering challenges related to the impacts of atmospheric and space phenomena on space and terrestrial technologies.

Lanzerotti has chaired a number of NRC boards and committees, including the Space Studies Board, the Committee for the

Photo: John Micale

only online meeting in June in Washington, D.C., includes notable engineers, scientists and auto safety experts.

They will review electronic systems across the auto industry.

“We are all proud of Dr. Lanzerotti’s continued contributions to fundamental and applied science and technology. He brings a very broad background to a critical analytical task that has implications for the safety of millions of people,” said NJIT Provost Ian Gatley.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering,

Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Committee on the Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage, and the Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board. He has been a principal researcher for NASA and commercial satellite missions. Currently, he has a key role involving instrumentation for NASA’s dual spacecraft Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission scheduled to launch in 2012. n

This issue also includes a feature that you’ll find only online — “Liberal Arts, Yew Trees and Combating Cancer.” Shimon Schwarzschild ’50, electrical engineer, has responded to “Bridging the Gulf – Science and the Liberal Arts Converge at NJIT,” which appeared in the spring 2010 issue. He shares his thoughts about the value of the liberal arts in science curricula and his experiences as an environmental advocate in the controversy surrounding the protection of an important natural resource and the development of a potent cancer treatment.

It’s online at http://magazine.njit.edu/yews or the QR link below. n

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“ It’s always a challenge when you come in with plans for a house that looks like nothing else on the street.”

Architect Richard Garber

Mayor Booker Cuts the Ribbon at Medical Genetics Lab

Green Award for a PREttyFAB House The unique sustainable design of a single-family home in Jersey City – dubbed the PREttyFAB house – has won a Project of

Photo: Christina Crovetto

www.njit-edc.org

Photo: courtesy gro architects

CGC Genetics, Inc., the first private medical genetics laboratory in Portugal, recently inaugurated U.S. operations at NJIT’s Enterprise Development Center (EDC). The company selected Newark over other cities for its U.S. headquarters as a result of concerted efforts on the part of Brick City Development Corporation and the City of Newark.

CGC Genetics offers more than 1,500 clinical genetic laboratory tests in the areas of molecular diagnostics, cytogenetics, prenatal/ pediatric screening, and cancer and personalized medicine. It will work with the Institute of Genomic Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey to improve health in the U.S. and other countries. n

A modular green roof – which dissipates heat and slows the drainage of water – sits over a portion of the structure.

Another segment has been optimized for solar collection and includes a 260-square-foot photovoltaic array. A battery stores excess energy produced. n

Cutting the ribbon for CGC Genetics (from left): East Ward Council Member Augusto Amador, Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker, CGC Genetics CEO Dr. Purificação Tavares, Portuguese Ambassador to the United States Joao de Vallera, Deputy Mayor for Economic and Housing Development Stefan Pryor, NJIT Senior Vice President for Research and Development Donald H. Sebastian, and New Jersey Medical School Interim Dean Dr. Robert L. Johnson.

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the Year Award from the city, presented in May at the Third Annual Green Awards ceremony.

The design is the work of Assistant Professor of Architecture Richard Garber, Nicole Robertson and colleagues at their firm GRO Architects. The project has also received an award from the New Jersey Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, of which Garber and Robertson are members.

Designing the 1600-squarefoot, prefabricated, super-sustainable house was not easy. “We were asked to set it on an undersized lot 22 feet wide and 54 feet deep, a derelict piece of land overrun with weeds,” says Garber.

The budget was modest and the client wanted the home to resemble none of the others on a block of two-story wood-frame, now aluminum-sided, structures.

“It’s always a challenge when you come in with plans for a house that looks like nothing else on the street,” he adds.

Steel Bridge Team Sweeps For the fifth year in a row, NJIT’s Steel Bridge Team took first place in the Metropolitan Region Steel Bridge Competition, held on the Fairleigh Dickinson campus in Teaneck, New Jersey. NJIT bested schools that included Columbia University, Cooper Union and Stevens Institute.

“Under the highly able leadership of Giancarlo Fricano and Tien Tran, the NJIT Team placed first in every scoring category, including construction speed, lightness, stiffness, construction economy, structural efficiency and display,” said team advisor John Schuring, professor of civil engineering. “This is the first time ever that our students have achieved such a clean sweep.”

The rigorous competition requires teams to design and fabricate a bridge of approximately 1/10 scale and erect it under deadline pressure. The 20-foot long bridge must be lightweight, yet strong enough to sustain a 2,500-pound load.

The annual event is sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction and the American Society of Civil Engineers. Schiavone Constructors and Engineers of Secaucus was once again corporate sponsor of the NJIT team. n

http://civil.njit.edu

tives of science, music, and poetry. It has since been published in Australia, China, England, Germany, Italy, Korea, Spain and Taiwan as both a book and CD. Rothenberg is currently working on a book that assesses the connection between evolution and aesthetics, including the aesthetic power of Darwin’s concept of natural selection. n

Harmonic Connections Overseers Honor Interspecies Researcher, Musician, Bestselling Author For the third year, fall at NJIT is highlighted by presentation of the Overseers Excellence in Research Prize and Medal — awarded to Professor of Humanities David B. Rothenberg. The title of the program — Harmonic Connections in Nature, Science, and Music — reflects the essence of Rothenberg’s research. The unique interdisciplinary character of the achievements honored is also vibrantly communicated by the tributes, multimedia presentations, and performances by clarinetist Rothenberg and pianist Marilyn Crispell comprising the event on October 6. Rothenberg’s own overview of his research was complemented by remarks from Ofer Tchernichovski, neuroscientist and animal behaviorist distinguished for his insights into bird song, and Scott McVay, pioneering investigator of whale vocalizations.

A member of NJIT’s faculty since 1992, Rothenberg’s widely publicized studies of bird song and whale song explore the complex, complementary relationship between music and the scientific investigation of nature. In 2008, Rothenberg received NJIT’s Excellence in Research Award for the College of Science and Liberal

Arts. His most recent book and CD, Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound, chronicles the rich, underwater universe of whale vocalizations. Philosopher and musician, Rothenberg traveled from Hawaii to Russia, playing his bass clarinet while recording the sounds of whales in their native habitats. Thousand

Mile Song was named one of the ten best science and technology books for 2008 by Booklist Online, a publication of the American Library Association.

Published in the U.S. in 2005, Why Birds Sing examined bird song from the combined perspec-

NJIT Degree a Top Investment “What’s Your College Degree Worth?” a Bloomberg Businessweek survey of 852 U.S. colleges and universities looking for the best return on investment (ROI), has named NJIT as one of four institutions in New Jersey offering the best

For more about Rothenberg’s research, see “Bridging the Gulf: Science and the Liberal Arts Converge at NJIT” in the winter 2010 issue and “Technology and the Music of Birds” in the spring 2006 issue online at http://magazine.njit.edu.

NJIT Board of Overseers Excellence in Research Prize and Medal: www.njit.edu/about/boards/overseers/awards/prize-medal

deal. Ranked at number 81, NJIT is in the top 10 percent of all the schools surveyed.

Princeton University, Stevens Institute of Technology and The College of New Jersey were also among New Jersey’s four best buys. The study examined graduation rates, total cost to graduation, ROI as a percentage, 30-year net return on investments, and 30-year net return for graduates. n

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Sorting Out a Green Challenge

http://mechanical.njit.edu

Photo: sheryl weinstein

Michael Lowry knows how to sort things out. Last spring, the mechanical engineering major’s single-stream recycling machine took first place in the Annual Student Design Competition sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Lowry’s challenge was to develop an autonomous material sorter that could distinguish between ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastics, ceramics and other solid materials for recycling.

Named Rufus after NJIT’s mascot for all things green, Lowry’s design features a cardboard sorter, glass bins for different materials, and a one-inch wide conveyor belt. In addition to a $500 prize and trophy, he earned a place at the ASME national design competition scheduled for November in Vancouver.

NJIT has captured first place for eight of the last thirteen years in this competition. Among the contenders that Lowry faced were City College of New York, Drexel, The College of New Jersey, Rochester Institute of Technology, Stevens Institute, Tufts and Villanova. n

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Photo: jason gomes

NJIT has captured first place for eight of the last thirteen years in ASME’s Annual Student Design Competition.

Habitat for Humanity Wins With NJIT It’s a win-win situation for Newark residents, NJIT, and architecture student Alexander Merlucci.* For NJIT, it’s recognition and a $25,000 grand prize awarded by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) for a townhouse design conceived in partnership with the Newark chapter of Habitat for Humanity. For area families, it’s the chance to own affordable homes built with the latest sustainable materials and technologies. The $25,000 prize will support continuing collaboration with Habitat for Humanity in Newark and the NJIT Habitat chapter.

Fourth-year architecture student Merlucci developed the winning townhouse design for the 2009 Habitat Options studio taught by Associate Professor Darius Sollohub and alumnus Jak Inglese ’80, ’83. Inglese, principal of Inglese Architecture and Engineering, is a widely recognized expert in the field of affordable, sustainable housing.

A key objective of the studio was to work with Newark residents to get real-world insights into their

housing needs and preferences, and to come up with a design that Habitat for Humanity could incorporate in a planned townhouse development. While most college design courses are largely exercises in aesthetics, this NJIT program focused on affordability, practicality and green design. All of the projects aimed at achieving high Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) ratings, a designation that could earn grants from the State of New Jersey to underwrite the up-front costs of ecological design elements.

Merlucci and runner-up Cara Constantino* are now working with Inglese to prepare blueprints for the winning design and obtain all municipal approvals. Once the plans are finalized and all approvals obtained, construction will be carried out by crews consisting mainly of volunteers, including the families who will become homeowners, in the traditional Habitat for Humanity manner. All Habitat homeowners contribute 400 hours of “sweat equity” to building their new homes, which are financed by zero-interest loans. n http://design.njit.edu *Dorman honors scholars

E N D N O T ES

Bar-Ness Receives Communication Theory Committee Award Yeheskel Bar-Ness, distinguished

$1.5 Million Grant for Solar Research Center NJIT has received a $1.5 million grant from Apollo Solar Energy, Inc. to establish a research center focused on advancing the use of cadmium telluride semiconductor materials in thin-film solar cells. Based in Chengdu, China, Apollo Solar Energy mines and refines tellurium and tellurium-based metals for the global electronics market.

“Solar arrays using thinfilm technology have already proven to reduce the cost per watt to one-third the cost of conventional systems,” says Donald H. Sebastian, NJIT’s senior vice president for research and development.

“Through diligent improvement in production, cost and quality, solar power can be a legitimate contender for much more than the small percentage of the global need that is now projected for photovoltaics.” n

Photo: Winnie Yeung

professor of electrical and computer engineering, is one of two recipients of the Communication

Theory Technical Committee Service Award for 2009 presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

The award recognizes Bar-Ness’ sustained leadership of the Communication Theory Committee, his role in organizing the first communication theory mini-conference at a major symposium, and his leadership in founding IEEE Communications Letters and serving as its inaugural editorin-chief. A Fellow and Lifetime Member of IEEE, Bar-Ness is director of NJIT’s Center for Communications and Signal Processing Research. n

Arinzeh Principal Investigator for New NSF Grant

Treena Arinzeh, associate profes-

sor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is the principal investigator for a $390,000 National Science Foundation grant for research into the use of a novel smart material, in combination with stem cells, as a tissue engineering medium Ali Abdi, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been acknowledged for outstanding contributions and leadership in underwater acoustic communications with an IEEE Region 1 Award.

Nancy W. Coppola, professor of

English, has received the 2010 Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence

for repairing severe cartilage defects. Co-principal investigators are Michael Jaffe, biomedical engineering research professor, and Boris Khusid, professor in the Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering. Arinzeh and her colleagues will carry out integrated investigations that combine advances in materials science with engineering characterization techniques, nano-material characterization, microelectronics, stem-cell bioengineering, and molecular biology/bioengineering techniques. The studies could have a significant impact in the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, smart materials and biomaterials. n

in Teaching from the Society for Technical Communication.

Sergiu M. Gorun, associate

professor in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, was a member of a team that presented their research in May at the 43rd Annual International Meeting of the Electron Spin Resonance Spectroscopy Group of

the Royal Society of Chemistry in Cardiff, United Kingdom.

Eric Katz, professor in the Department of Humanities, presented a paper titled “The Nazi Engineers: Reflections on Technological Ethics in Hell” at the 2010 Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology held in May at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.

Taha F. Marhaba, chair of the De-

partment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been honored with the Distinguished Engineer Award from Rutgers University, presented annually to a graduate who has made significant technical contributions during their career. Marhaba earned his BS in civil engineering and MS and PhD in environmental engineering from Rutgers.

Jay N. Meegoda, professor in the

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been named a Fellow by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Farzan Nadim, professor in the Departments of Mathematics and Biological Sciences, will serve as a member of the Sensorimotor Integration Study Section, Center for Scientific Review of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Study sections review grant applications submitted to the NIH, make recommendations on these applications to the appropriate NIH national advisory council or board, and survey the status of research in their fields of scientific expertise.

Anthony D. Rosato, professor in

the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, has received a Fulbright Senior Research Award to study the dynamic behavior of systems composed of particles at the University of Salerno in Fisciano, Italy.

Karl Schweizer, professor of history, has received The Citation of Merit for outstanding contributions to historical studies from the International Biographical Association, based in Cambridge, England.

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NJIT is one of eight schools whose players are eligible for NJCBA Division I All-State Teams.

The latest news about NJIT sports: www.njithighlanders.com

Three Score Division I All-Rookie Honors

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded NJIT nearly $470,000 to create a series of comprehensive courses that will teach mechanical engineers in the New York Metropolitan Region how to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings.

The NJIT Center for Building Knowledge, headed by Executive Director Deane M. Evans, will organize and run the courses.

“The challenge for the past 30 years has been making new buildings more energy efficient,” says Evans. “However, during the past decade, the emphasis has turned to improving existing buildings.

Hence there’s a greater need for cleaner-energy programs, and we’re here to rapidly turn out a new cohort of qualified energy commissioning agents, or auditors, for this region.”

Licensed engineers, architects and energy consultants who already have a strong base of knowledge and want to expand their services are encouraged to participate. For more information, contact Paul Romano, senior research architect, at the NJIT Center for Building Knowledge at 973-596-3098 or paul.romano@njit.edu. n

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Photos: Larry Levanti

Teddy Bickert*, Mark Leiter, Jr. and Matt Petrone scored with spots on the 2010 New Jersey Collegiate Baseball Association Division I All-Rookie Team. Bickert and Petrone each saw action at multiple infield and outfield positions, and Leiter is a righthanded starting pitcher.

Grant for Energy Auditing Courses

Clockwise from top left: Teddy Bickert, Mark Leiter Jr. and Matt Petrone

Bickert, who broke the school record for hits (66; old record was 59) and games played (56; old record was 50), also led the 2010

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Highlanders in batting average (.322), sacrifice bunts (4), games played and started (56), and at-bats and plate appearances.

Petrone, who fought through injuries that caused him to miss seven games, had a strong year with a .290 average, 186 at-bats, 31 runs (second on the team), six doubles, a team-best three triples, a home run, and 17 runs batted in. Petrone’s 17 stolen bases were a new school Division I record and he was also second on the 2010 team with 16 multiplehit games. While his primary position was left field, where he started 35 times, he also played center field (6 games), was the designated hitter in five games, and the second baseman in three.

Leiter comes from one of New Jersey’s leading baseball families – his father, Mark, Sr., and uncle, Al, are retired long-time major league pitchers, and his uncle, Kurt, is also a retired professional pitcher. A workhorse for NJIT as a freshman, he shared the team lead in wins (3) with classmate Tripp Davis and led NJIT in innings pitched (81.1) and strikeouts (60), while accounting for four of his team’s six complete games. His 14 games started also tied Davis for the team lead.

NJIT is one of eight schools whose players are eligible for NJCBA Division I All-State Teams, joining Fairleigh Dickinson (Teaneck), Monmouth, Princeton, Rider, Rutgers, Saint Peter’s and Seton Hall. The teams are chosen in an annual meeting with representatives of each school (usually the head coach) having one vote and being restricted from voting for their own players. n *Dorman honors scholar

giving

Learn more and contribute at www.njit.edu/giving

A Concrete Gift

Support for NJIT takes many forms, and some are literally concrete. In the case of the Naimoli Family Recreation Center, it’s steel and a host of other materials...including concrete. Thanks to a gift from the family of Vincent J. Naimoli ’62, this addition to the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center will more than double the amount of space available for recreational sports, intramurals, athletic practice sessions and other school activities.

Built in 1967 and expanded in 1990, the Fleisher Athletic Center has been hard pressed to accommodate the needs of the university’s growing student body. The new addition, which is expected to be available for use in early 2011, will add some 24,000 square feet to the Athletic Center’s current 17,000 square feet of floor space.

The Naimoli family has long been among NJIT’s most generous supporters. Naimoli, who

suitable for a variety of indoor recreational sports and intramural competitions. The wood floor of the Fleisher Athletic Center provides a venue suited primarily for basketball and volleyball. “The new space will accommodate indoor tennis, soccer, cricket and other recreational activities,” Kaplan says.

“But that’s not the full story. It will be ‘programmable’ space that allows multiple uses at the

same time. We also see it as being available for pre-college programs, career fairs, conferences – you name it.”

Comparing the NJIT of today with the institution of his days as a graduate student, Naimoli says, “Academic growth, the construction of new buildings, and improvements in the overall appearance of the campus have been amazing. Adequate facilities for athletics and personal physical fitness are an important part of this progress. They encourage activity that I feel is really valuable for a healthy outlook on life as well as a healthy body.

I’m very pleased that the Naimoli family can help to provide stateof-the-art space that the NJIT community needs not only for recreational athletics, but for a wide range of other uses.” n

Photo: John Micale

Vincent J. Naimoli and his wife, Lenda, at Celebration 2009.

earned a master’s in mechanical engineering at Newark College of Engineering, is chairman emeritus and founder of the Tampa Bay Rays and a member of the university’s Board of Overseers. As chief executive officer of Anchor Industries International, he was voted 1995 Florida Entrepreneur of the Year in the turnaround category. In 1999, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, and in 2004 was inducted into the National Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame.

NJIT Athletics Director Lenny Kaplan explains that plans for the fully air-conditioned Naimoli Center include a floor surface

Plans for the Naimoli Center include a floor surface suitable for a variety of indoor recreational sports and intramural competitions.

The Naimoli Family Recreation Center under construction

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within

reach New Therapies for Stroke Patients

Strokes are the leading cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States. Of some six million U.S. stroke survivors reported in recent statistics, only five percent will regain full use of affected arms and hands, which patients cite as a particularly disabling motor loss. And that’s despite having had intensive conventional therapy.

But researchers are working to devise new and more effective therapies for helping people who have suffered brain damage caused by stokes to regain vital abilities. Among them are NJIT Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Sergei Adamovich, students from his department, and colleagues at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). With the support of a $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Adamovich is developing better ways to rehabilitate individuals who have difficulty controlling their fingers, hands, elbows and shoulders. continued >

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individuals with arm as well as hand impairment have been asked to reach out in virtual environments to burst bubbles, take cups from a shelf and place them on a table, use a hammer, and gently capture and release birds perched at different levels on trees.

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Volunteers whose upper-body movements are still limited by the effects of strokes come to Adamovich’s sixth-floor laboratory in Fenster Hall on the NJIT campus for two-week therapy sessions. They spend up to three hours a day, five days a week participating in therapy and research that combines virtual reality “video games” and the use of robotic devices designed to assist in the rehabilitation process.

Adamovich has been collaborating for over 10 years with two research scientists and physical therapists at UMDNJ – Alma Merians, PT, PhD, chair of the Rehabilitation and Movement Sciences Department, and Assistant Professor Eugene Tunik, PT, PhD. Their immediate objective is to help individuals who have had a stroke with an innovative approach to rehabilitation.

They are also exploring how this promising therapeutic strategy may actually change neural connections in the brain as a patient’s motor functions improve.

Bubbles and pianos “Video game” is a convenient phrase to describe the virtual-reality (VR) environments that have been created to challenge volunteers with tasks they find difficult due to their strokes, Adamovich explains. For some of these activities, stereoscopic glasses enhance the three-dimensional VR experience with greater depth perception and immersion in the task presented.

In the course of the NJIT program, individuals with arm as well as hand impairment have been asked to reach out in virtual environments to burst bubbles, take cups from a shelf and place them on a table, use a hammer, and gently capture and release birds perched at different levels on trees. The goal is to improve the speed, smoothness and range of motion of shoulder and elbow movements. A virtual piano simulation helps patients improve their ability to move each finger individually.

Sounding notes by touching the virtual keys provides realistic auditory and visual feedback while also tracking hand and arm movements.

“Stroke rehabilitation programs are most effective when they both engage and increasingly challenge the patient,” Adamovich says.

“An engaging virtual environment can aid in 12

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this sense by systematically adapting the difficulty of a task to the ability of patients as they progress, and by motivating longer engagement in exercises than would likely be the case with conventional therapy.”

Haptic help In addition to sophisticated game-like activities in virtual environments, the NJIT program integrates the benefits of what are known as “haptic” devices. CyberGrasp gloves, fitted to the top of the hand, are used for hand and finger exercises such as the virtual piano. The Haptic Master system is used for activities involving the entire arm and shoulder. “These devices, essentially robotic exoskeletons, make it possible for patients to initiate and execute as much of a movement as they can and then provide varying degrees of assistance,” Adamovich says. “This gives participants a satisfying, encouraging measure of success while incrementally forcing them to work at the highest level they are capable of given their impairment.”

Results to date have been encouraging. For example, a group of 20 recent volunteers experienced motor-function improvement of 20 to 28 percent following participation in the NJIT program. They demonstrated improved independent finger flexion, finger speed, strength and range of motion as measured

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TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation (1), and functional MRI imaging (2) help to evaluate changes in the brain induced by robot-assisted therapy such as exercises with the Haptic Master (3). In the TMS experiment shown, Associate Professor Sergei Adamovich and UMDNJ Assistant Professor Eugene Tunik (standing, right) are working with volunteer Jony Scheynin to map the brain’s response to tasks performed in virtual reality.

Scheynin is a student in the joint NJIT/UMDNJ biomedical engineering PhD program. The photo was taken by NJIT BME alumnus Hamid Bagce ’07, now an MD/PhD student at UMDNJ.

during training tasks, as well as in kinematic measures of reaching and grasping and clinical tests of upper extremity function.

According to Adamovich, age appears to make no difference when it comes to the potential for improvement. People have enrolled in the program as many as 15 years past their strokes and sometimes make better progress than individuals six months past the event.

The neural evidence From one perspective, the most important outcome of the work being done in Adamovich’s lab is the immediate, everyday benefits it can offer for participants who have suffered the trauma of a stroke. Equally significant, however, is the promise of fundamental insights into how haptic training in virtual environments

R

ealizing the full potential of our approach to therapy depends on gaining a thorough understanding of how sensory and haptic manipulations in virtual reality affect neural processes.” — Sergei Adamovich, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

may induce positive changes in the brain by virtue of the brain’s neuroplasticity – its capacity to establish new functional pathways after serious damage. This knowledge is basic to establishing the clinical significance of the research under way at NJIT. A physicist and engineer, Adamovich has long been interested in how the brain controls motion, an interest that grew over the years as he became more focused on applied science. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the neural mechanism underlying the innovative rehabilitation strategy he is helping to develop. To this end, complementary studies of the brain’s response to the virtual-reality and haptic therapy under investigation have been initiated.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and functional MRI are being used to map brain activity in real time as subjects perform tasks related to the therapy program, as well as to evaluate the reorganization in brain networks after therapy. Before coming to Assistant Professor Tunik’s lab at UMDNJ for TMS evaluation, subjects undergo MRI scanning to generate an exact computer model of their brain. The model is used during the TMS session for precise positioning of the stimulation coil to ensure that the magnetic pulse enters the brain at a predetermined point of interest.

“Little is understood about susceptibility

Graduate student Qinyin Qiu working with a CyberGrasp Glove and the virtual piano therapy program

of brain function to visual, tactile and auditory manipulations within a virtual environment,” Adamovich states. “It is critical to determine the basic neurological mechanisms of moving and interacting within virtual reality, and to consider how they may be exploited to activate neural networks associated with sensory motor learning. Realizing the full potential of of our approach to therapy depends on gaining a thorough understanding of how sensory and haptic manipulations in virtual reality affect neural processes.”

However, Adamovich adds that virtual rehabilitation for movement disorders has been developing more slowly than virtual technologies in other areas of health care. There are several reasons for this situation. Continued progress requires sophisticated integration of hardware and software, which is technically complex and expensive. The interdisciplinary nature of rehabilitation research also presents challenges.

The design of interfaces to accommodate persons with impaired movement requires skills that span orthopedics, neuroscience, biomedical engineering, computer science and multiple rehabilitation disciplines.

Adamovich and his colleagues are working to address these issues. Ultimately, they hope, the therapeutic benefits of their research will be clearly validated and widely available to improve the lives of people who have endured debilitating strokes. n

continuing research

“

Research Volunteers Still Needed: Stroke Patients, Children with Cerebral Palsy Research into stroke rehabilitation is continuing at NJIT, and more volunteers who have experienced strokes are needed for the program.

Investigation of the benefits of virtual reality and haptic therapy is also being extended to children with cerebral palsy — the most common cause of physical disability in children. The therapeutic experience for cerebral palsy is being adapted for children in association with Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside, New Jersey.

Volunteers for the stroke program should be ambulatory and have transportation to the NJIT campus.

The cerebral palsy program is seeking participants between the ages of 5 and 15.

Individuals interested in the stroke rehabilitation program and the parents or guardians of children who might participate in the cerebral palsy program should contact NJIT Associate Professor Sergei Adamovich at 973-596-3413 or sergei.adamovich@njit.edu.

Author: Sheryl Weinstein is NJIT director of public relations. http://biomedical.njit.edu NJIT MAGAZINE

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meet ian gatley NJIT’s New Provost

These images of the same portion of the Milky Way, acquired some twenty years ago, illustrate the dramatic difference in detail between astronomical observations made at optical and infrared wavelengths. The image at left is in the optical region of the spectrum. The image at right, from Kitt Peak National Observatory, is one of the earliest to be acquired with the pioneering infrared detector array that NJIT Provost Ian Gatley helped to develop.

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Ian Gatley joined NJIT in May 2010 as provost, senior vice president for academic affairs and distinguished professor of physics. A prolific scholar well known in astronomy and imaging science, Gatley received a BSc with firstclass honors in physics from Imperial College, University of London and a PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology. He then served as astronomer and project manager with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope in Hawaii and later led the infrared astronomy program at the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatories in Arizona.

As chair of the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatories Infrared Steering Committee, Gatley headed

a multi-million dollar collaboration funded by the U.S. Naval Observatory and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories to develop the world’s most powerful indium antimonide infrared detector array. This detector, codenamed “Aladdin,” has been adopted by major observatories around the globe, and a large number of state-of-theart scientific instruments have been designed specifically to take advantage of its superior performance.

In 1997, Gatley became director of the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where he led the integration of an Aladdin-based camera with a telescope deployed at

the South Pole. This and other efforts comprised proof of concept for an approach to data capture and management ultimately utilized for NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. Building on a growing strength in astronomy, RIT also inaugurated a new PhD program in astrophysical sciences and technology.

While Director of the Carlson Center, Gatley served as associate director of the New York State-supported Center for Electronic Imaging Systems, co-authoring a winning $14 million proposal for a New York State Strategically Targeted Academic Research Center, the IT Collaboratory. This collaboration with the University at [continued]

“ W e really pioneered infrared observations. We discovered entire clust e r s o f you ng sta r s that we re previously unknown, and we made detailed maps of the inner regions o f o u r g a l a x y, th e M i l k y Way.” NJIT MAGAZINE

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“ I wanted to be more directly involved in education, about which I am passionate. It was time to give back to the next generation.”

Buffalo’s Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics and the NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred University integrates nano-material science, microsystems, photonics, remote sensing systems and information technologies.

Gatley was next appointed dean of the College of Science at RIT, where he took a special interest in promoting a culture that involved all undergraduates in research. Most recently before coming to NJIT, he led the Center for Student Innovation that serves as a hub and clearinghouse of RIT innovation resources.

In the following interview, NJIT’s new provost shares some thoughts about his career and the university’s future.

What attracted you to physics and astronomy?

As a small boy in northern England, where the Industrial Revolution began, I became fascinated with how stuff worked. This led to a fascination with models that describe the physical world, and I became crazy about physics at an early age, around 12. My mom and a physics teacher I had in the English equivalent of high school were especially encouraging. My teacher even called me by my first name when we talked about physics outside of class. That was a big deal in England in those days.

With my mom’s help, I sought out the writings of the Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. Feynman would later reemerge in my life when my wife, Cathy, had this brilliant idea that I should go to graduate school in California, where I actually met him. I showed up to study physics but fell in love with astronomy.

Up to that point, I had spent a lot of time in the classroom and was used to solving problems for which the answer was in the back of the book. So my perspectives were rather narrow. When I went to Cal Tech, my life changed in many important ways.

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How did your life change in California?

I met people who were inventing a new kind of astrophysics, called infrared astronomy, which I found I could understand very well.

There are places in interstellar space that are very, very dusty – where stars are presently being formed, for example. This dust gets in the way of seeing what’s going on at optical wavelengths.

But people have known for a long time that if you could only make the observations, infrared light would let you see a lot more, to see through the dust. When I showed up in California at the age of 22, I got the chance to visit the Mount Palomar Observatory, which has a 200-inch reflector and a fabulous amount of technology. At the time, they had hung one little sensitive infrared chip in the focal plane, a camera with only one pixel! Even then, at 22, I looked at it and felt, “Well, that’s pretty much a technological disaster – what we need is a real infrared camera.”

So I became fixated on the idea of developing the technological capability to make infrared observations, and the people I was able to work with were fabulous, brilliant. By chance, I had showed up at the very beginning of infrared astronomy. It was just barely happening. The difference between no pixels and one pixel was profound because it got us started, and we became a big team of people working for years and years and years, decades actually.

But eventually we produced a camera with a million pixels.

It was like being in at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Each time we took new infrared technology to the telescope, we made discoveries. How exciting is that? We really pioneered infrared observations. We discovered entire clusters of young stars that were previously unknown, and we made detailed maps of the inner regions of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Eventually, we were able to obtain images that were quite dramatic and which attracted the attention of publications such as National Geographic magazine. One day, as I was giving an interview for National Geographic about

our work, the person I was talking to selected an image and asked: “If you made the same observation with the technology as it was before your improvements, could you take this picture in an hour? How long would it have taken?”

So we sat down and figured out that it would have required a much longer exposure.

In fact, it would have taken something like 400 years. Helping to make a discovery with that sort of impact, which makes it possible to do things spectacularly more efficiently – it was a really glorious, exciting experience.

Why did you leave the lab in favor of academics and administration?

Although my 25 years as a hands-on researcher after I came to the U.S. were very fulfilling, it was time for a change. I wanted to be more directly involved in education, about which I am passionate. It was time to give back to the next generation.

I joined Rochester Institute of Technology, in Kodak country, to lead its first PhD program, which was in imaging science. The success of this program led RIT to offer PhDs in more fields. So I became a professional educator and eventually dean of science, where my goals of giving back through education were realized in an important way by becoming a good administrator.

For me, the most appealing part of being an educator is doing one’s best to share the excitement of learning, of gaining new knowledge about the world around us. In science and technology, or any field, our challenge as educators is to inspire a life-long desire to learn. We need to do this by providing appropriate educational experiences at every level, from the time a child first enters the classroom. We must invest all the imagination, passion and resources necessary to inspire and motivate young people of both genders and all cultures.

It’s especially important at the college level, particularly at a school like NJIT, to involve all students in research – in doing what they hear about in lectures and read about in textbooks.

Practical experiences that excite students so that they demand to know more are essential.

Doing is a vital key.

How do you view the role of provost?

Live the mission. A provost must exude the values of the institution, and efficiently focus enthusiasm for its mission. That requires a great deal of listening and a clear vision of the big picture, to understand what people need to perform to the best of their abilities. People must be able to follow their passions in order to live their dreams and each fulfill his or her own unique potential.

What do you see as NJIT’s strengths?

NJIT is a superb institution with an obvious passion for doing the job of teaching really well. In both teaching and research, it’s all about the people. I like what NJIT’s people do. There is a clear emphasis on developing the tools needed to achieve important ends, among them taking advantage of our location to strengthen our partnerships with government and industry.

What do you feel lies ahead for NJIT as an institution challenged to meet President Obama’s vision for advancing education in science and technology?

Photo: John Micale

The United States is still the envy of the world when it comes to higher education. But America must become more competitive, and while it is still too soon to talk about results, I’m glad that President Obama has put education in science and technology on the national agenda.

Education must be available to everyone who is qualified. Words are easy, however.

We must make the actual investment needed.

I think NJIT’s strategic plan makes a strong statement about the university’s commitment to working toward this goal. n Interviewer: Jean M. Llewellyn is executive director of university communications at NJIT.

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“ You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

—NJIT President Robert A. Altenkirch Left: New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno and NJIT President Robert A. Altenkirch

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Commencement 2010 “Reach as you rise.”

— New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno

O

n May 17, at NJIT’s 2010 commencement, New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno endorsed the value of embracing the unexpected in life, and NJIT President Robert A. Altenkirch urged the graduating class to always retain the imagination and wonder that lead to great accomplishments.

Guadagno, who began her public career as a federal prosecutor, was the 75th sheriff of Monmouth County and the county’s first woman sheriff.

She is also New Jersey’s first lieutenant governor.

NJIT awarded 2,237 degrees to the Class of 2010, which Guadagno addressed as the keynote speaker at the Prudential Center in Newark.

Guadagno received an honorary doctorate of humane letters. Energyindustry leader Ralph Izzo and medical pioneer Leon Smith were also awarded honorary doctorates.

Six “simple” rules “Love what you do” but “stay open to surprises,” Guadagno said. “If anyone ever told me when I was your age that I would be a sheriff or lieutenant governor some day, I never would have believed them.”

Guadagno, who said that the primary goal of her speech was to be “quick, since it’s only me who stands between you and your diploma,” advised students to follow six simple life rules. “First and foremost, do what you love.

Everything else will fall in place.” Number two was always to expect the unexpected with its corollary rule, number three – to make sure you have a backup plan.

“Take that long shot,” she also advised, discussing her own life and how opportunities arose like the recent election for lieutenant governor. “My shot was running for an office no one ever heard of,” she said.

Number five focused on humility. “Learn from your failures,” she remarked, “and make

sure you always move forward afterward.”

Her last piece of advice was don’t fear ambition. “Reach as you rise,” she urged. “Take the opportunities as they come along. And stay in New Jersey!”

Service to industry and the nation Ralph Izzo, PhD, chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG), received an honorary doctor of science degree. Since joining Public Service Electric and Gas in 1992, Izzo has served in various executive positions within PSEG’s family of companies.

Izzo is a well known leader within the utility industry, as well as the public policy arena.

His public-policy experience includes service as an American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellow in the office of former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley. He also served four years

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“I know that you will always be among those who understand that accomplishments in the present are never ultimate, never end points.”

—NJIT President Robert A. Altenkirch as a senior policy advisor in the office of former New Jersey Governor Thomas H. Kean, specializing in energy, science and technology.

Izzo’s career began as a research scientist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, performing numerical simulations of fusion energy experiments. He has published or presented over 35 papers on magnetohydrodynamic modeling.

Top: Leon Smith (left), who received an honorary doctor of science degree, with Fadi Deek, dean of the College of Science and Liberal Arts.

Above: Ralph Izzo receiving the hood for his honorary doctor of science degree from NJIT Trustee Vincent L. DeCaprio ’72.

Pioneering action against disease Leon Smith, MD, an early AIDS activist, was also awarded an honorary doctor of science degree. Smith developed the first viral diagnostic laboratory in New Jersey as well as HIV and hepatitis C clinics at Saint Michael’s Medical Center, Newark, where he still practices.

The “go-to” doctor for mystery diseases, he was chief of infectious diseases at Saint Michael’s before becoming chair of the hospital’s department of medicine.

In 1979, Smith identified New Jersey’s first AIDS cases and worked with Saint Michael’s to establish the state’s first AIDS clinic. Although people were initially reluctant to work there, the clinic was eventually able to treat 50 people daily, a roster that grew to more than 5,000 patients. “That was before we had good therapy,” says Smith. “Today the drugs are so good, it’s easier to treat AIDS than diabetes.” Smith is also actively involved with the Leon Smith Foundation, which is dedicated to combating AIDS in Africa.

Seeing with imagination NJIT President Robert A. Altenkirch advocated an imaginative and creative perspective on the world, quoting Mark Twain who cautioned that “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

Looking back over the past hundred years or so, Altenkirch said, one finds many surprising pronouncements by intelligent, educated individuals whose imagination was blurred.

“They couldn’t accept the feasibility or foresee the potential of scientific and technological advances that others did.”

Altenkirch gave the example of renowned

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mathematician and physicist Lord Kelvin, who asserted the impossibility of heavierthan-air flying machines fewer than ten years before the Wright Brothers’ first flight in 1903.

In 1946, Altenkirch went on to say, famed movie-producer Darryl Zanuck stated, “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months.” And he cited the ironically confident 1977 statement by the founder of the mainframe computer manufacturer Digital Equipment Corporation that “There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.”

But others looked ahead to different futures, Altenkirch continued, and offered a different message that merits special attention today.

One such individual was the pioneering chemist Sir Humphry Davy, a close friend of the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose perspective on the future was poetic as well as that of a cleareyed scientist. Early in the 19th century, Davy wrote, “Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries

in nature; that our triumphs are complete; and that there are no new worlds to conquer.”

“Whatever paths you follow as graduates of NJIT,” Altenkirch projected, “I know that you will always be among those who understand that accomplishments in the present are never ultimate, never end points. We know that your capacity to marvel at the mysteries of the world around us will not diminish, and that you will persist in seeking to change the world in ways that are both exciting and positive.” n

alumni circuit The Twelfth Salute The accomplishments of alumni, faculty, students and friends of Newark College of Engineering were recognized in March at the school’s twelfth annual Salute to Engineering Excellence, held once again at the Campus Center.

Alex Khowaylo ’63

The three graduates honored as prominent NCE alumni have devoted their careers to improving orthopedic and cardiac health. Alex Khowaylo ’63 lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany after World War II before emigrating with his family to America and settling in New Jersey. After completing his degree in mechanical engineering, he went to work for a firm that was part of the fledging orthopedic implant industry. He has since enjoyed a long career in the field, developing joint replacement devices for hips, knees and shoulders. He most recently was a co-founder of Implex Corp., serving as chair-

man and chief executive officer until the company was acquired

by Zimmer Holdings in 2004.

Implex developed the first new biomaterial for orthopedic applications since the early 1980s.

Robert C. Gorman and Joseph H. Gorman are both ’84 alumni with degrees in chemical engineering. They subsequently graduated from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and today are associate professors of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. They are also co-directors of the Gorman Cardiovascular Research Group, a laboratory focused on the design of devices for treating heart-failure and cardiovascular problems which receives support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The brothers have served on numerous study sections and advisory committees for the NIH as well as the American Heart Association. Robert Gorman was recently recognized with a prestigious Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association.

Turner Construction Company, where many NCE grads have built careers, was the recipient of the Outstanding Partnership Award for 2010. Since its inception in 1902, when Turner pioneered the practical use of reinforced-concrete design, the company has grown dramatically. Today, it is a $10 billion corporation with 46 offices and more than 5,000 employees nationwide. Turner’s New Jersey office has built or managed the construction of many of the

Robert C. Gorman ’84 (left) and Joseph H. Gorman ’84

state’s leading commercial, residential, institutional, industrial, sports and healthcare facilities, as well as buildings at NJIT. Receiving NCE faculty and staff awards were Basil Baltzis, Excellence in Teaching; Kevin McDermott, Saul K. Fenster Innovation in Engineering Education; Shivon Boodhoo, Excellence in Advising; Edna Shepherd Randolph, Outstanding Staff Award; Lynnette Randall, Maureen Fagan, Dean’s Service Award.

The NJIT chapter of Engineers Without Borders received the Outstanding Student Chapter Award for their humanitarian efforts to provide the people of Milot, Haiti, with safe, clean water.

Students and future alumni recognized were Giancarlo Fricano (CE, Surveying EngTech), Saul K. Fenster Innovation in Design

Award; Rui Zhang (CompE), NCE Outstanding Graduate Student Award; Salman Haider Naqvi (EE)*, NCE Outstanding Senior Student Award – Overall; Mariya Tohfafarosh (BME)*, Razmenka Lazoroska (CHE), Matthew Young (CE), Salman Haider Naqvi (EE)*, Vinskey Louissaint (EngTech)*, Phong Pham (EE, ME)*, Departmental Outstanding Senior Student Award; Lekshmi Pillai (CHE)*, Kate Boardman (EE)*, NCE Madame Mau Outstanding Female Engineering Student Endowment Award. n *Dorman honors scholars

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alumni circuit Honoring Outstanding Alumni 2010 Alumni Achievement Awards The presentation of Alumni Achievement Awards has become a highlight of NJIT’s annual Class Reunion Weekend. The 2010 awards ceremony in May, sponsored by the NJIT Alumni Association, recognized six graduates for exceptionally diverse career accomplishments and service to their home communities, to our nation, and to the people of other countries.

Austin L. Alvarez Service to U.S. Navy Submarine Programs Austin Alvarez has seen a lot of shocking situations over more than 40 years at Electric Boat Corporation in Connecticut. A division of General Dynamics, Electric Boat designs, builds and maintains nuclear submarines for the U.S. Navy. Alvarez is a

staff engineer and technical leader for shock and structures development, vital work affecting the safety and survivability of the Navy’s undersea fleet.

Alvarez’s service to submariners began with his 1968 degree in civil engineering. Although he enjoyed playing junior varsity basketball during his first two years at NJIT, he switched to intramural competition due to the demands of his academic program. Of that program, he says, “I had many outstanding courses and professors, but the writing course I had with Doc Estrin still stands out in my memory. Being able to write well and communicate effectively has been invaluable.”

Joining Electric Boat the year he graduated, Alvarez has ably applied all of his skills in the course of a career that began, as he recalls, when engineers worked with slide rules. As in every field, the introduction of computers was revolutionary. Dynamic shock analysis was among the key applications for Electric Boat – facilitating

Austin Alvarez at Electric Boat Corporation’s Graving Dock 3 before major reconstruction.

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“ You can’t ask the right questions if you don’t know what you don’t know. NJIT deserves a great deal of credit for giving me the tools to ask the right questions and to make a difference in people’s lives.”

— Arthur E. Hahn

sophisticated modeling of the forces generated by events such as underwater explosions and their effects on submarine structures and attached equipment.

Alvarez had the opportunity to specialize in this analytical area early on at Electric Boat. He subsequently led efforts to bring a number of significant advances on board, including the application of the Underwater Shock Analysis Code to submarines.

In addition to his NCE degree, Alvarez has an MS in civil engineering from the University of Connecticut and an MBA from Rensselaer. He is a Professional Engineer registered in Connecticut. Numerous awards attest to his professional accomplishments. In 2005, he received the General Dynamics Technology Excellence Award for his contributions to structural engineering and shock design and analysis.

In 2009, he was inducted into the University of Connecticut’s Academy of Distinguished Engineers and honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Shock and Vibration Information Analysis Center.

Alvarez is succinct when it comes to characterizing his four decades with Electric Boat: “I’ve never been bored a day on the job. There are always new challenges.” Not long ago, he even had a major assignment with echoes of a part-time job he held while an undergraduate student.

As an undergraduate, Alvarez worked part-time and summers for the Newark engineering firm that had designed several new buildings for NJIT’s expanding campus, and he inspected concrete

poured for the structures.

For a multi-year project launched in 2004, Alvarez led the design team that conceived unique strategies for using reinforced concrete to extend the service life of Electric Boat’s three graving docks – the massive facilities where submarines are built and repaired. The legacy for the U.S. Navy and the nation is that Graving Docks 1 and 2 have been certified for 50 more years of service and Graving Dock 3 for 75 more years.

Benjamin P. D’Armiento A colorful career A 1948 grad in chemical engineering, Benjamin D’Armiento has worked in a field literally full of color. For more than three decades, he earned professional prominence with dyes and colorants essential for applications such as printing and automotive finishing. His life has had figurative touches of color too – as a fencing champion, community activist and enthusiastic tour guide for foreign visitors to the U.S. At Newark’s Barringer High School, one indicator of D’Armiento’s technical aptitude was the savings bond won in a competition sponsored by the 1939 World’s Fair, whose theme was “Building the World of Tomorrow.” “I won for the idea of an elevated monorail that would run down the median of a highway stretching from northern New Jersey to Atlantic City,” D’Armiento says.

Although he worked at the Newark Public Library while studying to become an engineer, D’Armiento still managed

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Alumni Relations, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Eberhardt Hall NJIT Alumni Center, Room 218, 323 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Newark, NJ 07102-1982

Benjamin P. D’Armiento

to exercise his fencing skills. A champion high-school fencer, D’Armiento and several likeminded students parried initial administrative reluctance to reenergize the college’s fencing program, suspended during World War II. “I loved the sport and was even able to continue as a coach at the YMCA in Newark for about 14 years after graduation,” he recalls.

After receiving his degree, D’Armiento joined a firm named Interchemical, an association that lasted until 1996 through acquisition by United Technologies and BASF. Initially assigned to food container coatings, it wasn’t long before he took on the work where he made a significant professional mark.

Managing design and construction of an automated facility in Indiana that produced and then pumped ink to a large printing plant was among the many high points of D’Armiento’s career.

Two patents also underscore his expertise – one for greatly accelerating the preparation of container coatings and another for the

recovery of solvents used in printing and automotive finishing.

Before he retired from full-time work with BASF as manager of engineering for the North American graphics group, D’Armiento traveled widely in Europe to evaluate plants and operations. Back home, he was also a tour guide for visiting foreign staff. “I really liked to do it, and on weekends I would escort visitors to all the sights in Manhattan – the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and many other places. I think it’s because I enjoy meeting different people so much.”

As D’Armiento tells it, his sociability has led to forays into community activism as well.

Living in Clifton, New Jersey, before retirement, he successfully organized neighbors to keep a developer from building an unwanted apartment complex.

Today, D’Armiento lives in Toms River, Ocean County. Getting to know D’Armiento, the mayor recognized just the person to organize a petition drive aimed at asking residents to vote on

changing the name of what was then Dover Township to Toms River – to avoid confusion with the Dover Township in Morris County. D’Armiento spearheaded the collection of signatures for a ballot question that voters enthusiastically passed.

D’Armiento continues to be very much engaged with his alma mater. He’s on the Alumni Association’s Board of Directors and the President’s Alumni Advisory Council. A member of the Monmouth and Ocean County Regional Club, you’ll also see him greeting alums and guests at events like Lakewood BlueClaws baseball games.

plastic and paper cards using the “bar code” that the company had developed. As Hahn relates, “IBM understood the potential of the technology, and we had the assignment of determining the best method for putting that magnetic strip on plastic and paper cards and designing a fully automated production line.”

IBM had also convinced the National Retail Merchants Association to adopt their magnetic

Arthur E. Hahn Magnetic pioneer It happens many millions of times each day around the world – the coded magnetic strip on a plastic credit card is automatically read to complete a purchase.

The same technology makes it possible to use an ATM and to pay for riding on a subway or bus with a paper fare card. And it’s all thanks to the role played by alum Arthur Hahn in the introduction of this indispensable innovation.

In the early 1970s, Hahn headed a small group at IBM charged with finding a practical way to incorporate a magnetic strip on

Arthur E. Hahn

bar code as a standard, and the success of Hahn and his team would transform shopping and other daily activities.

Yet this is not the only highlight of Hahn’s career. He contributed to pioneering research in wireless communications and later launched a company that made a major change in the way electricity is metered.

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alumni circuit a lu m ni achi evem en t awa rd s, Hahn came to IBM via RCA Laboratories and Taft Electro Systems. After high school in Matawan, New Jersey, he attended the RCA Institute, becoming an electronics technician at the company’s world famous research organization in Princeton. While with RCA, he attended NCE at night, completing a BS in electrical engineering in 1969. At RCA, he also participated in the invention of the first low-power chip for FM wireless communications. Hahn is named on the 1969 patent for this revolutionary contribution to wireless technology.

Attracted by opportunities in the emerging field of computers, Hahn moved on to Taft Electro Systems in Edison, where he designed a digital computer used by Grumman Aviation to download operational data from fighter aircraft on the tarmac. “This work made me a perfect fit for the job at IBM, in their Information Records Division,” he says.

But Hahn admits that he’s a “restless entrepreneur.” After his magnetic code breakthrough at IBM, he started a company to market a product he conceived for metering electricity – the first digital kilowatt meter. The new firm, E-Mon, met the demand for “sub-metering.” E-Mon units support tenant billing, cost allocation, demand management and energy conservation for multi-family homes, apartment complexes, commercial buildings, government facilities and college campuses.

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participation in the highly successful E-Mon enterprise. He keeps a hand in business with activities that include real estate, and he travels widely. Speaking about a recent trip to China, he touched on the significance of education in that country’s rise to economic power, and in his own life.

“You can’t ask the right questions if you don’t know what you don’t know. NJIT deserves a great deal of credit for giving me the tools to ask the right questions and to make a difference in people’s lives,” Hahn says.

“These days, it’s amazing to see what the entrepreneurial spirit and education are achieving in China. I think education is really the solution for all the world’s problems.”

Edmund H. Hecht Professional engineer, arbitrator, international scholar “Don’t even mention seafoam green to me today,” Edmund Hecht says with a laugh, recalling the institutional color he applied in copious amounts with an NCE painting crew in the mid1950s. It was one of the parttime jobs he had while studying mechanical engineering. Hecht also worked in the college bookstore and on the switchboard. In more recent years, he’s returned to the classroom as a teacher – sharing a wide range of knowledge at colleges in Texas and as a Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine.

“I owe a great debt to NCE,” Hecht says more seriously. “I received a truly outstanding

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Edmund Hecht (far left) with his wife Bernis at a coffee cooperative in Honduras, where he volunteered to advise local planters on quality control for processing coffee beans as well as plant maintenance and reliability.

education. In addition, after my father became seriously ill, the administration helped to arrange my class schedule so that I could take what was a full-time job in the quality control lab at Hoffman Soda, part of the Pabst beer company. My shift was from 3:30 in the afternoon until midnight.”

After graduating in 1956, Hecht accepted a job with General Electric, becoming expert in the installation and maintenance of turboelectric equipment for power plants. He also discovered his flair for marketing and management, enhanced by the MBA he earned at Southern Methodist University. This set of skills served him well when, in the 1970s, he co-founded a turbomachinery repair company in Corpus Christi, Texas. Hecht and his family had settled in Corpus Christi after years of traveling for General Electric.

Hecht built a very successful enterprise. But with their children grown, Hecht and his wife decided it was time to change

course in life. He sold his share of the business and the couple spent time touring the U.S. and other countries.

Hecht’s next venture was the Turbomachinery Repair Users Council, with success again stemming from his technical and managerial acumen. He brought original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) together with potential clients to explore mutual interests and promote the benefits of OEM service.

Subsequently, with the founding of EHco Services, Hecht applied his aptitude for bringing people together in much broader venues. On the technical side, EHco appraises many types of plants and equipment. But having acquired the necessary certifications, Hecht can also arbitrate and mediate issues ranging from neighbors arguing about a barking dog to disputes involving labor contracts and child visitation rights in a divorce. Sanctioned in many states as a way to avoid costly court

“ Study hard, get involved, learn to be a good communicator, live by ethics. But be sure to enjoy your days at NJIT.” — Walter H. Kraft

trials, Hecht explains that his role as a mediator is to facilitate “civil discussion of differences.”

Arbitration is a binding procedure. “As an arbitrator, I’m really the judge and jury,” he says.

Hecht has shared his knowledge and experience as an adjunct instructor at various schools in the Corpus Christi area, including Texas A&MKingsville and Embry Riddle University. He also works closely with many educational and service organizations in his community. Internationally, he’s been a visiting university lecturer in Jordan and volunteered his skills as an executive in Armenia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Honduras. These commitments have been widely recognized with honors that include the President of the United States’ Volunteer Service Award that he received in 2004 and 2007.

In 2009, as a Fulbright Scholar, Hecht taught business courses at Kremenchuk State Polytechnic University in Ukraine. Speaking of the experience, he reflects, “The people I met are very enthusiastic about building their free-market economy. You’d have to learn the culture and language. But if I were younger, I’d definitely think about doing business in that part of the world.”

Walter H. Kraft A moving engineer Walter Kraft has had a long and rewarding career keeping people on the move. He’s an internationally known expert in traffic engineering and intelligent transportation systems. Kraft started on the road to his first job in the

field, at Edwards and Kelcey, with a 1962 BS in civil engineering. It was an association that would last more than 30 years.

Kraft was first given the choice of working in one of three areas: structures, highways, or something called “traffic.” Looking further into his options, he chose the traffic department. “It struck me that traffic engineering was more of a ‘people’ profession, meeting the everyday needs of people who need to get from one place to another,” he recalls.

In meeting these needs, Kraft rose from staff engineer to partner and senior vice president.

Along the route, he worked on projects ranging from optimizing the flow of traffic for new and expanding shopping centers to installation of the first bicycle lane in Manhattan. He introduced personal computers at the firm. “For some, that was a genuinely traumatic change in the corporate culture,” he says with a wry tone. During his time at Edwards and Kelcey, in addition to taking care of demanding professional responsibilities, Kraft added an MS in civil engineering and a doctorate of engineering science to his academic credentials – both from NJIT. In 1994, Kraft headed in a new direction. He joined PB Farradyne, a subsidiary of Parsons Brinckerhoff, as a senior vice president. Over the next decade, Kraft served as president of PB Farradyne Engineering and vice president of Parsons Brinkerhoff Quade and Douglas. Much of his work focused on advocating and implementing the capabilities of “intelligent” traffic technologies made possible by the

Walter H. Kraft

fast-growing power of computers and advanced remote sensors.

Electronic signage could now give drivers real-time information about road conditions and traffic flow. First responders could be routed more quickly to the site of accidents and other emergencies, with others on the road routed away from hazards that include especially dangerous secondary accidents.

A Professional Engineer licensed in more than a dozen states, Kraft’s expertise has been widely honored, particularly by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). He served as ITE’s international president in 1987 and later in various leadership positions, including chair of the Future Directions Advisory Committee. In 1999, he was named an ITE Honorary Member – at the time only the 60th member to receive what the institute describes as the “highest recognition of notable and outstanding professional achievement.”

Over the years, Kraft has also shared his knowledge as an

adjunct faculty member at NJIT and schools across the country.

In 2010, he continues to promote state-of-the art traffic engineering through his own consulting practice and as executive technical director for Eng-Wong, Taub & Associates.

Kraft was a key mover in developing NJIT’s graduate transportation program, and he remains connected to the university as a member of the Albert Dorman Honors College Board of Visitors. His advice to the young men and women currently pursuing their educational goals at his alma mater – “Study hard, get involved, learn to be a good communicator, live by ethics. But be sure to enjoy your days at NJIT.”

Robert M. Zanzalari Help in harm’s way Advanced radar, laser, electro-optic, infrared warning and countermeasure systems – these are just some of the technical innovations that Robert Zanzalari has helped to develop and deploy during his civilian service with the U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC). In the field, such advances have increased the survivability of ground vehicles and aircraft, including the Army’s large helicopter fleet.

Today, at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, Zanzalari is associate director of the CERDEC, which is part of the Army’s Research and Development Command.

He is responsible for overseeing a science and technology portfolio intended to give troops a defensive

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alumni circuit his technical and managerial achievements. Among them are the Commander’s Award for Civilian Service, the Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service and the Superior Civilian Service Award.

In his current position, Zanzalari is working to marshal technical resources from both the public and private sectors that best meet the Army’s needs.

Yet whatever the technology or tactical use, the ultimate test will always be whether it helps our troops to accomplish their mission and bring them home safely from harm’s way.

“All aspects of my work for the Army are satisfying,” Zanzalari says. “But it’s especially gratifying to hear from the men and women in the field that what we do saves lives.” n

Architecture Alums Win with Hoops

Architecture League. A charrette competition involves working intensely to meet a challenging project deadline. The team’s winning design, which featured hundreds of hula hoops connected to form a canopy, was part of a temporary summer installation in the backyard of the SUPERFRONT art gallery hosting events for New York City Explorers, a Brooklynbased nonprofit group. n

and offensive edge in battle. He’s been working to provide this edge since 1982, when he graduated with a BS in mechanical engineering.

“I looked at various schools, including Stevens, but decided that NJIT offered the best preparation for the real-world workplace,” Zanzalari says. A serious student, he didn’t arrive at NJIT with the intention of also becoming a basketball star.

“You might say I was recruited,” he explains, after his height of six feet, five inches was noted by members of the Athletics Department. Persuaded to play, Zanzalari went on to score 1224 points, the 11th highest record in NJIT basketball history.

Zanzalari says that he accepted a position with the Army because he saw the opportunity to use his skills for a range of assignments much broader than would be the case as a junior member of most organizations in the private sector. Starting with the Management Information Systems Directorate at Picatinny Arsenal, he subsequently moved to Fort 26

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Monmouth and positions of increasing responsibility. His work has also taken him abroad to present the benefits of leadingedge military technologies to U.S. allies.

In the late 1990’s, Zanzalari’s forward-looking responsibilities involved charting the strategic direction of efforts by a team of 75 engineers and scientists. He has been responsible for assessing the revitalization of systems engineering across his Center as well, in keeping with initiatives launched by the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army.

After passage of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Law, Zanzalari was assigned to oversee transfer of major CERDEC operations to the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

For the Army, this was the most complex move under the law. It was accomplished with maximum consideration for the personnel to be reassigned and without disrupting vital research and development initiatives.

Zanzalari has received a host of awards in recognition of

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Photo: Dave Rittinger

Robert M. Zanzalari

Justin Foster ’08, Lauren Page ’08 and Phil Kuehne ’07 – graduates of New Jersey School of Architecture and members of the design collective KIT – teamed up to take first place in a charrette competition sponsored by the New York

class notes Mal & Friends NJIT Magazine invites new correspondents to join Mal Simon in sharing news about class members and alumni organizations.

Professor emeritus of physical education and athletics, Mal was director of physical education and athletics, and men’s soccer coach, for 30 years. In 1993, he received the Cullimore Medal for his service to the university.

If you would like to be a regular correspondent, don’t hesitate to send an e-mail to the editor of NJIT Magazine: dean.maskevich@njit.edu.

First, the latest news from Mal – Hosted by Jose Dias ’85 and Maggie Dias, and Cesar Gavidia ’77 and Griselda Gavidia, the 11th Annual Florida Soccer Reunion was held on March 12-14. Attendees were treated to sumptuous dinners at the Dias home in Palm City and a lively picnic including a “Survival of the Fittest” soccer game at the Halpatiokee Regional Park in Stuart.

A special guest on the last evening of the reunion was Martin (Marty) Hammer ’80. Marty, who lives in Berkeley, California, was on his way home from Haiti after spending two weeks there as a member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.

When he e-mailed me that he was going to Haiti and on the way back home would stop in Miami on the last day of our reunion, I asked if he could spend some time with us. Marty played soccer at NJIT and some of his teammates would be at the reunion. As the party was at the Dias home, Jose invited Marty to stay there. Marty brought his computer and gave a dramatic talk and slide show about conditions in Haiti.

Jim Moreno ’73 made a hole in one on the par three thirteenth

hole at the Belleview Biltmore Golf Club in Clearwater, Florida.

The German construction giant Hochtief AG has acquired E.E. Cruz & Co., a heavy and civil construction company based in New Jersey whose owner and CEO is Ed Cruz ’63. The acquisition was a joint venture between Flatiron Construction of Longmont, Colorado, and Turner Construction of New York, subsidiaries of Hochtief. Ed will continue as CEO and all E.E. Cruz employees will continue in their current positions. Among the 250 employees are COO and President Joe Malandro ’70, Senior Project Manager Jack Tobin ’87, Project Manager Gus Lijo ’98 and Project Engineers Pablo Lemus ’03 and Antonio Goncalves ’86.

Ray Bilott ’56 tells an amusing anecdote about his varsity soccer debut vs. Long Island University in 1953. He writes, “I knew nothing about soccer when I joined the team under Alex Rae and really was there just in case someone got injured and they needed someone to fill in. But I loved sports and worked hard at all the practices, and although I had very little ball handling skills, I did have a strong

(From left) Griselda Gavidia, Cesar Gavidia, Martin Hammer, Joseph Dias, Jose Dias and Maggie Dias

leg and could kick the ball like a bullet. I actually got into the game as a right inside when one of our last remaining players got hurt.

The next couple of minutes will always remain in my memory.

The ball seemed to appear magically at my feet about 20-30 yards from the goal. As the LIU fullback came to challenge me, I took a mighty swing with my left foot, causing the defender to momentarily shy away. Of course, I had totally missed the ball. But I spun around and kicked the ball with my right leg, by some miracle making contact with the ball and sending a missile into the upper left corner of the goal for our first score. We won that game and it helped me earn more playing time from then on. Alex and everybody told me what a great ‘fake’ and shot I had made, never realizing what a lucky fluke it was.”

2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the 1960 NAIA National Championship Soccer Team, which I had the privilege of coaching. Plans are being made to honor the team in October.

But any celebration of this event would not be complete if we did not acknowledge those who started varsity soccer at NCE in 1951.

You can read about the beginning of soccer at NJIT in a separate article written by Jim Boyle ’58 and Kurt Carlson ’53.

Jim was the goalie on the 1951 team because no one else could play that position.

Following the 1951 season, he left college for a tour in the U.S. Navy as an aviation electronics technician. At the end of his enlistment, he returned to NCE for the 1954 season and played fullback for the next four seasons. Jim’s active participation in college life included intramurals, the Athletic Association, Alpha Sigma Mu, the veterans fraternity, and as associate editor of the 1958 Nucleus.

He was elected to Omicron Delta Kappa and Pi Delta Epsilon. Jim has the distinction of being the only player on the 1951 team to play on the first team I coached in 1955 and the only person to receive five varsity letters in one sport.

When I announced the 50th anniversary of soccer in 2002, Jim spent five years trying to convince me that I was wrong because he claimed the first team was fielded in 1951. It was my belief that this was a club team but Jim was equally convinced it was a varsity team. He finally showed me evidence that he was correct, which I acknowledged, along with a humble apology for being so stubborn, in one of my “Mal and Friends” columns. It was also my belief that the 1951 team was a club team that led me to allow Jim to play four more years of varsity soccer. Now

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class notes that it has been proven that he erroneously received one letter too many, I have determined Jim may keep the five letters but the 1951 team will have to forfeit its season. Despite this minor disagreement, Jim and I are still great friends because we are both of Scottish descent and were born the same year. Jim was employed

by PSE&G for 36 years, retiring in 1993 as general manager of purchasing. He has continued his association with NJIT by being an active member of the Alumni Association and the Highlander Athletics Advisory Board.

Kurt played soccer as a youngster in Sweden and for Thomas Jefferson High School in Elizabeth. He was a member of the baseball and bowling teams at NCE and began his soccer playing days in his senior year when his friends on the 1951 team convinced him to come out for the 1952 team. At the first practice, the coach (Alex Rae) commented that Kurt reminded him of “a big Swede named Kurt Carlson he had played against many times.” When Kurt told him that was his father, Coach Rae asked Kurt to invite him to the next practice. His father could not refuse, and the two veterans had a great time reminiscing about some of their past battles.

Kurt’s engineering career, which was interrupted by two years in the U.S. Army, includes positions with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the New York Urban Development Corporation, which became known as the Empire State Development Corporation, in the Design and Construction Department. The period from 1980 until his retirement in 1998

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was an exciting time in Kurt’s career as he was actively involved in such projects as the Javits Convention Center, The Carrier Dome at Syracuse University, The Center of Engineering and Physical Science Research at Columbia University and the tramway to Battery Park City.

Enjoy the article that Jim and Kurt have written for this issue about the start of soccer at NCE, and the article about the work that Marty Hammer and his wife have done in Haiti. I hope their journalistic efforts inspire other alumni to share interesting reminiscences and experiences in brief articles.

And keep the news coming to me at mal.simon@njit.edu or coach7157@yahoo.com.

1950 Henry W. Ott (EE) received the 2009 PROSE Award for his book Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering, published by John Wiley & Sons, in the engineering and technology category. The PROSE Awards presented annually by the Association of American Publishers recognize the best in professional and scholarly publishing by honoring distinguished books, journals and electronic content in over 40 categories.

1968 Joseph C. Muscari (IE) has been

appointed to the board of management of automotive supplier Dana Holding.

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1978 Major General Ellen M. Pawlikowski (ChE) is the

commander, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. She is responsible for managing the Air Force’s $2.2 billion science and technology program as well as additional customer-funded research and development of $2.2 billion. She is also responsible for a workforce of approximately 10,800 in the laboratory’s component technology directorates, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and 711th Human Performance Wing.

1980 Michael H. Armm P.E. (CE), MS

’84 (CE) has been elected chairman of the Board of Trustees of Culpeper Regional Hospital in Culpeper, Virginia. The facility is an acute care teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Virginia Health System.

1986 Henry Duncan (IA) is the deputy head of risk for SG Equipment Finance USA, located in Jersey City.

He previously spent 15 years with CIT Group, most recently as the chief credit officer for CIT’s major global vendor relationships.

1987 David Hughes MS (Computer

Science) writes that his firm, D. Hughes & Co., has been “selected

by Digital Foundation Corporation as its exclusive trading partner for project management and related courses. The contract was

awarded after a competitive bidding process conducted through the Registered Education Provider RFP system hosted by the Project Management Institute.”

1989 Rich Nass (EE) has been appointed director of content for medical device brands at Canon Communications LLC.

1995 Mary “Maureen” Woods P.E.

(CE) is the principal and president of Maxwell Consulting Engineers, Inc., based in Florida. She writes, “We specialize in providing non-conventional, cost-effective solutions for coastal engineering challenges.”

1998 Bahia Munem MS (PTC) has been awarded one of seven Woodrow Wilson Women’s Studies Dissertation Fellowships. She is now a doctoral candidate in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

2002 Gary Dantico (ChE) shares the news that he is working for Nestle, managing the company’s cruise ship beverage operations for the U.S. East Coast, the Caribbean, Europe and the Mediterranean area.

The first decade of NCE soccer culminated in 1960 with the team sharing the NAIA National Championship with Elizabethtown College in a 2-2 tie game that was called after four overtimes due to darkness.

Starting Toward a National Championship

By Jim Boyle ’58 and Kurt Carlson ’53

1951: That’s when soccer took to the field in a serious way at Newark College of Engineering, starting the Highlanders on the road to a national championship.

Spearheaded by Dolph Rotfeld ’53, former New York Scholastic All Star, soccer became a varsity sport at NCE in the fall of that year. Comprised of players born in such countries as Austria, Brazil, Costa Rica, England, Greece, Ireland, Scotland and the United States, our team had a very international character.

Although we did not win once in a four-game season, the team

improved with each match, laying a foundation that future teams would build upon.

Losing to Pratt 0-10, Panzer 1-6 and Stevens 0-8 could have dampened our spirits, but we were having fun and knew we were improving. Our confidence was almost rewarded in our last game against Arnold College.

We were leading 2-1 at half time on goals by Spyros Pappidas and Alfredo Serrano. Our lead almost increased to 3-1 in the third quarter, but a goal by Jerry Sorkin was disallowed when the referee ruled that Jerry was fouled and instead awarded us a penalty kick. Unfortunately, the kick was missed and Arnold tied the game, and in the closing minutes got the winning tally.

The many soccer balls we headed over the years have diminished our memory, so we couldn’t come up with names for all those able

to gather for the 1951 team photo we located. Here’s who we could recall: (standing, left to right), Paul Kisciras ’53, ?, ?, Steve Rotter ’53, Dolph Rotfeld ’53, Carmen Verrone ’53, Anthony Yannotta, Alfred Serrano ’53, Spyros Pappidas, (kneeling, left to right) ?, Jorge Miernik, ?, Jim Boyle ’58, Gil Blair ’54, Leo Blonarvitch, Jose Dominques-Rego. We’d appreciate hearing from the unidentified players or anyone who recognizes them. Please email either of us: Jim Boyle at deejim1059@ optonline.net or Kurt Carlson at kle56@optonline.net.

With more than 12 lettermen returning, the nucleus of the 1952 team was essentially the same as the 1951 squad, and the season’s results showed how much the team had improved.

We were coached by Alex Rae, a part-time NCE student, and Professor Robert Swanson,

chair of the Physical Education Department. Alex, who was born in Scotland and had played soccer for many years, used to watch the team practice at Branch Brook Park and volunteered his services as coach for the next three seasons. Because of our demanding academic schedule and the time needed to travel from NCE to Branch Brook Park by car or subway, we never had a full team at any practice.

With team captain Alfredo Serrano and Andy Latawiec on the forward line, and Dolph Rotfeld, Steve Rotter, Carmen Verrone and Jorge Miernik supplying defensive strength, we went from losing every game in the initial season to a 4-3-2 record in 1952. The opening game was a good indication of things to come as we upset highly favored Stevens 3-2. Prior to the game, Coach Rae implored us to do better than last year and try to keep the score to a reasonable 1-3 or 1-4. We said we expected to win – and we did.

After losing to Arnold College and Panzer College, we returned to the win column with a 4-3 victory over Long Island University. Following a loss to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, we pulled another upset, this time over a strong Trenton State Teachers College, 2-1. Our season ended with a 2-1 win over Pratt, and 1-1 and 0-0 ties with West Point and Queens College.

Latawiec became the first player selected to the Eastern Area of the All-American Soccer Team. (continued)

The 1951 soccer team

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New Jersey School of Architecture alumnus Martin Hammer ’80 and his physician wife Miriam Shipp visited Haiti for three weeks in April and May to contribute their professional expertise.

The 1953 team, captained by Anthony Yannotta, lost quite a few seniors from the 1952 team, so it was almost like starting over again and the season ended with a disappointing 1-7 record. 1954, led by co-captains Latawiec and Jon Ross ’56, was another rebound year that ended with a 3-3-2 record.

In 1955, Mal Simon joined the Physical Education Department and took over the coaching reins from Alex, becoming NCE’s first full-time soccer coach. His debut was as inauspicious as our first season, ending with a losing record. The team soon improved and, following three winning seasons, went on a tear of 22 games without a loss. The first decade of NCE soccer culminated in 1960 with the team sharing the NAIA National Championship with Elizabethtown College in a 2-2 tie game that was called after four overtimes due to darkness.

Today, NJIT is known nationally as a team not to be taken lightly. We take pride in knowing we were there in the beginning.

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Dr. Miriam Shipp helped to meet Haiti’s medical crisis.

Rebuilding and Health in Haiti The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated the most densely populated area of Haiti in January 2010 killed 230,000, injured 300,000, and left over a million homeless. To help answer the enormous and urgent needs of the Haitian people, New Jersey School of Architecture alumnus Martin Hammer ’80 and his physician wife Miriam Shipp visited Haiti for three weeks in April and May to contribute their professional expertise.

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It was architect Hammer’s second visit – his first was in March with a 25-member reconnaissance team from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) to evaluate buildings and infrastructure in and around Port-au-Prince.

The second trip was with a fivemember historic preservation team from the World Monuments Fund to assess over 200 Victorian-era buildings in the “Gingerbread District” of Portau-Prince.

During that time, Miriam Shipp attended patients in underserved tent encampments in Port-au-Prince and Carrefour, and at a free clinic at the Aristide Foundation. She saw up to 50 patients a day as a primary care physician, treating conditions such as malnutrition, hypertension and infectious disease. Shipp worked with the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund in conjunction with both Haitian and American clinicians. (www.haitiaction.net/ About/HERF/HERF.html for more information).

Hammer continues his work in Haiti supporting sustainable

reconstruction as a representative of Builders Without Borders. This includes finding more sustainable alternatives to the prevalent concrete and block buildings that fared so poorly in the earthquake. Reviving vernacular building traditions will be an important part of this initiative, combining them with new understanding and technologies to create shelter that is earthquake-safe, hurricane-safe, resource-efficient and affordable. Pilot projects to involve and train Haitian builders will be an essential part of the effort.

For more information about Builders Without Borders: www. builderswithoutborders.org. n

Architect Martin Hammer is assisting with reconstruction in Haiti.

In Memoriam

Gene Schmid with his wife, Marie, in 2006

Long-time coach and administrator passes John “Gene” Schmid, head coach of NJIT’s baseball team from 1973 to 1997, passed away on June 12 at the age of 74. Schmid has been called the “winningest coach” in school history, having produced 393 career wins against 316 losses, with three ties. He also served NJIT for more than 20 years as director of career planning and placement.

During most of his coaching career, Schmid worked with his student-athletes on a voluntary basis, guiding them through many outstanding seasons while serving NJIT full-time in Career Services.

For 25 years, he provided insightful employment counseling and advice on skills vital for job seekers, from writing effective resumes to making the best impression at an interview.

Also affectionately known to players as “Spud,” Schmid came to Career Services in 1966 with a BS from St. Peter’s College, and he later earned an MS at Montclair State

University. In addition to coaching baseball, he was assistant basketball coach for two years and an advisor to Sigma Pi Fraternity. He retired from Career Services in 1991, but coached until 1997.

In 2002, Schmid was inducted into the NJIT Athletic Hall of Fame for his achievements as head baseball coach. The Highlanders won ten Independent Athletic Conference championships and a Skyline Conference championship. They made seven appearances in the Division III playoffs of the Eastern College Athletic Conference and won the championship in 1982, which led to the team’s induction into the NJIT Athletic Hall of Fame.

Schmid’s commitment to young athletes was not limited to baseball.

He officiated at high school and college basketball and football games as well. He was a member of the New Jersey Baseball and Softball Umpires Association, and a member and past president of the New Jersey Football Officials Association and the International Association of Basketball Officials, Northwest New Jersey Board 168.

Schmid’s dedication was recognized with many personal honors. He was named Coach of the Year by the Skyline Conference and accorded the same honor ten times by the Independent Athletic Conference. In addition to being a member of the NJIT Athletic Hall of Fame, he was inducted into the Independent Athletic Conference Hall of Fame in 1993 and the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame in 2006. Assistant chair of the Division III National Baseball Championship Committee for ten years, he received the New Jersey Collegiate Baseball Association Award in 1997.

The NJIT community also notes with great sadness the passing of the following alumni: Arthur Worthington Goodale ’37 Frank John Vecchiotti ’43 Ned B. Sluyter ’52, MS ’55

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alumni Calendar save the date!

Celebration 2010 Friday, November 12 Pleasantdale Chateau West Orange, New Jersey

NJIT’s annual festive evening of dining and dancing in support of endowed scholarships for students.

Information: Jacquie Rhodes 973-596-3407 or rhodes@njit.edu Also visit www.njit.edu/celebration

Corporate Clubs

Young Alumni Club

NJIT’s Corporate Clubs provide valuable networking opportunities for alumni in the workplace while also assisting NJIT students and faculty. Current Corporate Clubs include: Eng-Wong, Taub & Associates, Hatch Mott MacDonald, PSE&G, ScheringPlough, Turner Construction and United Parcel Service.

The Young Alumni Club organizes social gatherings and networking events for alumni who have graduated within the last 20 years.

Corporate Club information and events: www.njit.edu/alumni/clubs

11th Annual Florida Soccer Alumni Reunion Friday-Sunday, March 11-13, 2011 Coral Spring, Florida Hosted by Hernan Borja and Carlos Restrepo

All alumni, soccer players or not, are welcome.

For information contact Hernan at coachchico@myacc. net or Carlos at restcar@bellsouth.net.

Regional Clubs NJIT Regional Clubs are planning events across the country.

Check the Alumni Events Calendar and Regional Club pages on the Alumni Relations Website for more information: www.njit.edu/alumni/clubs

For information about Young Alumni Club activities, including career-advancement events: www.njit.edu/alumni/clubs

Alumni Reunions Planning for 2010 fifth-year anniversary reunions is under way for all classes whose graduation years end in “0” and “5.”

For information about reunions and Alumni Reunion Committee meetings, visit your class Website at www.njit.edu/alumni/class.

Reunion information is also available from the Alumni Relations Office: 973-596-3441 or by email to alumni@njit.edu.

For the most current information about all alumni events — including specific dates — visit www.njit.edu/alumni/events and the Websites of the individual clubs and groups listed.

Photo: Scott Jones

Information is also available from the Alumni Relations Office: 973-596-3441 or alumni@njit.edu.

A Kickoff With Honors Dick Sweeney ’82 (left), Albert Dorman Honors College Dean Joel Bloom, and Daniel A. Henderson at the colloquium on innovation and invention held in April, the first of the events commemorating the 15th anniversary of the college. Sweeney is co-inventor of the Keurig single-cup coffee machine, a founder of Keurig, Inc., and vice president for contract manufacturing and quality assurance. CEO of Intellect Wireless, Henderson is a sculptor, entrepreneur and inventor who holds 26 U.S. patents for innovations that include major contributions to wireless communications technology.

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at the edge

Industrial Design on Display

Allen Catbagan and Reina Gonzalez at ICFF. Juicer (above right) by Reina Gonzalez.

The new industrial design program of NJIT’s School of Art + Design was represented for the first time last May at the annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) held in Manhattan. NJIT booth posters showcased some fifty student projects. Nine students displayed physical prototypes – Sarah Ovsiew’s lunchbox, lighting by Joe Kasper and Allen Catbagan, juicers by Reina Gonzalez and James Miller, and “smart modules” forming the kernel of designs by Philip Caleja, Samantha Goldman, Alex Kolesnikov and Sara Jane Rin.

The exhibit was created by student volunteers and Professors Brooks Atwood (Industrial Design), David Brothers (Interior Design), and Glenn Goldman (Director, School of Art + Design) as well as University Lecturer Jose Alcala (Industrial Design) and adjunct/product designer Ran Lerner of Ran Lerner Design.

ICFF allowed students to network with professional colleagues and potential employers while raising the visibility of NJIT.

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