NJIT Magazine-Fall 2014 by NJIT

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WATER CRISIS OF QUANTITY AND QUALITY

RHYTHMS OF LIFE

Gaining Circadian Insights

MEET NCE’S NEW DEAN

An Interview with Moshe Kam

MAGA Z I N E

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A MESSAGE FROM NJIT PRESIDENT JOEL S. BLOOM

FEATURES PAGE 8

C R I T I C A L U N D E R S TA N D I N G

NJIT MAGAZINE Fall 2014

One of the most important goals that we seek to achieve at NJIT is to promote incisive analytical understanding of problems encountered in daily life, understanding that can lead to practical solutions based on science and technology. Without exaggeration, one such problem highlighted in this issue is of critical concern to the entire global community. It is the growing worldwide shortage of water pure enough and safe enough to drink. Researchers at NJIT are working on technologies that can help to meet this escalating water challenge, which threatens to impact the quality of life not only in distant regions of the globe, but in the United States as well. NJIT students, baccalaureates through Ph.D.’s, also are assisting with this work, engagement reflective of involvement in research that is part of the NJIT experience from the time they begin their studies at our university. The article on mathematical science and the investigation of circadian rhythms focuses on a very different aspect of our relationship with the world around us, and our personal well-being. It describes research funded by the National Science Foundation that seeks greater understanding of the biological clock that regulates the pace of life for every person. Attuned to cycles of light and dark, the way this mechanism governs mood and awareness has an important bearing on how we feel each day in all of our activities, on our relationships, our work and productivity. Recently, we welcomed Dr. Moshe Kam to NJIT as the dean of Newark College of Engineering, and he shares his thoughts on a number of topics in this issue. They range from why he chose engineering as a profession to the sense of social responsibility that must be fostered by engineering education. NCE’s enrollment has grown, making it the largest engineering college in the greater metropolitan region, and under Dean Kam we look forward to comparable growth in NCE’s national and international reputation. Dean Kam is quite clear about the critical role that engineers, and everyone with technological and scientific skills, must play in identifying significant qualityof-life problems and helping to develop solutions. In expressing this view, he speaks for all at NJIT who recognize the special role that polytechnic universities play nationally and internationally. I encourage your review of these articles and your feedback.

Denise Anderson Acting Assistant Vice President Strategic Communications Dean L. Maskevich Editor Christina Crovetto MS ’03 Assistant Editor Robert Florida, Tracey Regan Contributing Writers Babette Hoyle Production Coordinator Skelton Design Design Editorial Advisory Board Charles R. Dees, Jr., E. Perry Deess, Kirstie Gentleman, Jacquelynn G. Rhodes, Henry Ross, Anita Rubino ’83, Steven Saperstein ’84, Michele Scott ’93, Donald H. Sebastian, Nancy Steffen-Fluhr. NJIT Magazine is published by New Jersey Institute of Technology, Office of Strategic 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.

Water: Crisis of Quantity and Quality

D E PA RT M E N T S 2 ABSTRACTS

NJIT news in brief

NJIT researchers are working on technological solutions for a dire global shortage.

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7 G IVING

Researching Fundamental Rhythms of Life

20 A LUMNI CIRCUIT

Mathematical science is advancing knowledge of the biological clock that sets the pace for life each day. PAG E 16

Athletics update NJIT development news Class notes, alumni calendar, and more 33 AT THE EDGE

Leading-edge achievements by faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of NJIT

Engineering a New Vision for NCE The new dean of the university’s oldest college shares his thoughts about joining the NJIT community.

Please send letters of comment and requests to reproduce material from the magazine to: NJIT Magazine Office of Strategic Communications University Heights Newark, NJ 07102-1982 Dean.Maskevich@njit.edu Joel S. Bloom President Charles R. Dees, Jr. Vice President University Advancement Michael A. Wall Senior Executive Director Constituent Relations On the web: magazine.njit.edu

Cover illustration by Mark Smith ii

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M AG A ZI NE

FA L L

FEATURES PAGE 8

Water: Crisis of Quantity and Quality

D E PA RT M E N T S 2 ABSTRACTS

NJIT news in brief

NJIT researchers are working on technological solutions for a dire global shortage.

6 P OINT BY POINT

PAGE 12

7 G IVING

Researching Fundamental Rhythms of Life

20 A LUMNI CIRCUIT

Mathematical science is advancing knowledge of the biological clock that sets the pace for life each day. PAG E 16

Athletics update NJIT development news Class notes, alumni calendar, and more 3 3 AT THE EDGE

Leading-edge achievements by faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of NJIT

Engineering a New Vision for NCE The new dean of the universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oldest college shares his thoughts about joining the NJIT community.

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ABSTRACTS PHOTO: HOLLANDER PHOTOGRAPHIC SERVICES

U.S. Senator Cory Booker speaking at the launch of NJIT’s New Jersey Innovation Institute.

INITIATING INNOVATION The university has embarked on a new era of research and development with the launch of the New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII), an NJIT corporation created to spur innovation and growth in key economic sectors by leveraging the resources of industry, government and higher education. NJII consists of five innovation labs (iLabs) ready to work with industry partners in healthcare delivery systems, bio-pharmaceutical production, civil infrastructure, defense and homeland security, and financial services. Government and industry leaders, including U.S. Senator Cory Booker, New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno, New Jersey Secretary of Higher Education Rochelle Hendricks, New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak and Panasonic Corp. of North America Chairman and CEO Joe Taylor joined President Joel S. Bloom on campus in April for the launch. Bloom commented, “Economic development is in NJIT’s blood 2

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and is expressly stated as part of our mission. From the very beginning, our university was created to provide a skilled workforce that could serve New Jersey industries. Throughout our history, we have viewed industry as a true partner, adapting over time and engaging in a range of business-friendly ventures because we recognize that our success and the success of our graduates are undeniably intertwined with the success of New Jersey industry.” Booker added, “The New Jersey Innovation Institute is poised to help industries at every stage – from the birth of an idea in a lab to refining how that idea is produced. NJII is

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going to help our state remain one of America’s most important engines for economic growth and global competitiveness.” Led by Donald Sebastian, NJII president and the university’s senior vice president for technology and business development, the new corporation has already begun to forge strategic relationships with industry partners. Soon after naming Tomas Gregorio EMBA ’08, a veteran healthcare executive experienced in building IT networks for regional hospitals, senior executive director of healthcare systems innovation, NJII secured its first contract. Partnering with Osler Health IPA, a health network owned and managed by primary care physicians, the NJII team will assist physician practices with transforming their organizations to deliver higher quality service, while also helping them convert data collected in electronic medical records to actionable information. “Our Healthcare Delivery Systems iLab is the first out of the gate with a complete set of services for the sector. With the capacity to innovate new business delivery models fueled by the latest information technology, this group is tackling the difficult issue of reducing the cost of healthcare while increasing quality and accessibility,” says Sebastian. “Our other iLabs will use the same recipe of assessment, businessprocess improvement, supplychain development and enabling technology to drive innovation for our partner companies.”

“ The New Jersey Innovation Institute is poised to help industries at every stage — from the birth of an idea in a lab to refining how that idea is produced.” — U.S. Senator Cory Booker

NJII has also been awarded a $5.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to examine the defense supply chain in New Jersey and assess its capacity to meet existing defense needs and grow into new markets. NJII’s Defense and Homeland Security iLab will work with aerospace and defense suppliers in the state to bolster their market potential by developing new products for existing markets and gain new customers for the products they already make. “While each of these sectors faces unique issues and market pressure to innovate, there is a shared need to rethink the role of supply-chain partners as important players in the innovation process,” Sebastian notes. “Our new grant from the Department of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment is focused on identifying, stabilizing and diversifying the state’s defense manufacturing supply chain. The tools and technologies that we develop in this program will serve us well as we look to assist companies across the other sectors.” Six companies, including AECOM, Louis Berger, Cisco, HEALTHEC, Panasonic Corp., and Torcon, Inc., have already committed to charter memberships by making founding contributions to NJII, while several others are finalizing agreements. “These companies recognize the value NJII has for themselves and their sectors, and they are playing an active role in helping us develop our iLabs,” Sebastian says.

“ We essentially modified commercial paints and introduced nanotechnology to tailor the trigger temperatures.” — Research Professor Zafar Iqbal

TOO HOT FOR SAFETY NJIT researchers have developed a paint that changes color when exposed to high temperatures, giving a visual warning to people handling material or equipment with the potential to cause burns, malfunction, or explode. The technology was commissioned and funded by the U.S. Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) at Picatinny Arsenal in response to dangerous desert conditions encountered in Iraq, where soldiers reported temperatures near munitions sometimes exceeding 190 degrees F, far above design limits.

beginning at about 95 degrees F. It was awarded a U.S. patent in May of this year. “We essentially modified commercial paints and introduced nanotechnology to tailor the trigger temperatures,” Iqbal explains, adding that his laboratory is starting to develop inks related to the innovative coating that can be applied by inkjet printers. The technology has potentially wider applications as well, including as a temperature indicator for factory machines, household appliances and tools, signaling that they have become dangerously hot. It could also warn firefighters of the intensity of a fire on the other side of structures such as doors. n chemistry.njit.edu

PRINCETON REVIEW:

NJIT AMONG THE BEST FOR 2015

Research Professor Zafar Iqbal

The joint NJIT/ARDEC development team was led by Zafar Iqbal, research professor in the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science. Referred to as a “thermal-indicating composition” and applied as a coating or a mark on packaging, the material turns different shades of color from blue to red in response to temperature,

NJIT is one of the best institutions for undergraduate education in the U.S., according to The Princeton Review. The education services company features NJIT in the 2015 edition of its annual college guide, The Best 379 Colleges. The book, which is The Princeton Review’s flagship college guide, features only about 15 percent of America’s 2,500 four-year colleges. The Princeton Review profile states, “NJIT is certainly a crown jewel within New Jersey’s public university system. Indeed, armed with a great reputation, NJIT offers undergrads quality academic programs at an affordable price.” n

BETTER BLEEDING CONTROL Endomedix, a company housed at NJIT’s Enterprise Development Center, has received a $1.4 million federal grant to develop a spray-on gel that surgeons could use to stanch bleeding during brain surgery. The gel can be sprayed onto a surgical site, and the natural bio-polymer solutions in the gel will cohere and control bleeding within 30 seconds. The gel can shorten an intracranial surgery by 30-45 minutes. This translates into less time for the patient’s skull to be open and less anesthesia, reducing both the possibility of infection and morbidity. Shorter surgeries also reduce hospital costs. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke awarded the $1.4 million to Endomedix to support its research on the gel, technically classified as a medical device. A division of the National Institutes of Health, the institute had previously awarded another grant to Endomedix for the same project. Endomedix has been developing the gel, known as a surgical hemostat, since 2009. Its applied research phase has been successful — the company has two issued U.S. patents for the gel and anticipates initiating biocompatibility testing, after which it will seek regulatory authorization to begin clinical studies. n

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“ Portland Streetcar is a great example of a grass roots effort to stimulate the economy and development using a transit mode, which was then supported by effective land-use planning.” — NJIT researcher Sean Vroom

TRANSIT COMMUNITY KEY Transit-centered communities that are dense, service-rich and walkable are one of the pillars of developing a sustainable living environment in the 21st century. But the challenge, planners say, is figuring out how to actually create them. NJIT has risen to the challenge with the publication of Planning for Transit-Supportive Development: A Practitioner’s Guide, a 600-page toolkit of best practices, techniques and transferrable “lessons learned” that highlights successes in integrating transit planning with local land-use planning. “We present methods for identifying project champions, engaging the community and,

LEADING IN RESILIENT DESIGN

design.njit.edu

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Light rail system in Portland, Oregon.

PHOTO: STEVE MORGAN, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The American Institute of Architects Foundation (AIAF) has selected NJIT to be the site of a Regional Resilience Design Studio, whose mission is to design and build resilient structures and communities across the Northeast. The studio will be housed at NJIT’s Center for Resilient Design, which works to address critical design and sustainable building challenges across New Jersey, especially those that arose in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Funded by a $250,000 grant from Benjamin Moore & Co., the new studio is the first to be launched as part of the AIAF’s National Resilience Program, which plans to open five Regional Resilience Design Studios in collaboration with Architecture for Humanity and Public Architecture. Urs P. Gauchat, dean of NJIT’s College of Architecture and Design, says that the studio will be a great asset to NJIT’s effort to lead the nation in devising resilient designs. “Natural disasters are a real and imminent threat,” says Gauchat, “and we need to find responses that examine not only where we build, but also if we build, then how. NJIT’s Center for Resilient Design wants to thank the AIAF for this opportunity to help communities in the Northeast anticipate and recover more quickly from natural disasters.” Thomas Dallessio, director of the Center for Resilient Design, says the studio will allow researchers to design prototypes for resilient houses and businesses and to then turn those models into thousands of built structures. “We will establish the first AIAF studio at NJIT and it will become the flagship for the other regional studios,” Dallessio says. n

ultimately, undertaking meaningful planning to realize economically and environmentally sustainable communities around transit,” says Colette Santasieri, director of strategic initiatives for NJIT and the guide’s principal author. “We stress the importance of taking a regional view in integrating transit and local land-use planning, with the understanding that transit investments, housing, and environmental policies must be coordinated more closely at the regional level in order to achieve the goals of sustainability on the local level.” Sean Vroom, an NJIT researcher on Santasieri’s project team, points to several success stories that serve in the guide as examples for other regions and municipalities to emulate. He cites the Portland Streetcar in Portland, Oregon, and the LYNX

END NOTES

Light Rail Transit System in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Portland Streetcar is a great example of a grass roots effort to stimulate the economy and development using a transit mode, which was then supported by effective land-use planning,” Vroom says. “The LYNX Light Rail System is a great example of the incorporation of land-use considerations simultaneously with the design of a new transit system – something that is not usually done.” The guide, funded by a $2.2 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), is designed as a resource document for planners on every level, including metropolitan planning organizations, regional planners, transit agencies, local planners and local governments, who want to understand the many nuances of planning for transitsupportive development. n The FTA has posted NJIT’s Planning for Transit-Supportive Development: A Practitioner’s Guide (in six different pdfs) on its website at fta.dot.gov/ about/12351_8850.html.

Ali Akansu, professor in the Helen

Maurie Cohen, associate professor

and John C. Hartmann Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Ph.D. student Yanjia Sun presented a paper titled “Automatic Inference of Mental States from Spontaneous Facial Expressions” at IEEE’s ICASSP 2014 in Florence, Italy. ICASSP is the world’s largest technical conference focused on signal processing and its applications. Another paper, “The Power of Fear: Facial Emotion Analysis of CEOs to Forecast Firm Performance,” was co-authored with Assistant Professor James Cicon of the School of Management and presented at the IEEE Information Reuse and Integration Conference in August.

in the Department of Humanities and director of the Science, Technology, and Society Program, has been appointed to serve as a mentor with the Central Asia and Afghanistan Research Fellowship Program funded by the International Development Research Council (Canada) and administered by the Mountain Societies Research Institute of the University of Central Asia. He will be working with Said Ahmad Najafizada, a Ph.D. student in population health at the University of Ottawa, on a project titled “An Evaluation of the Off-Farm Livelihood Skill to Create Sustainable Communities in Rural Bamyan, Afghanistan.”

Cesar Bandera, assistant profes-

Deane Evans, executive director

sor in the School of Management, presented the results of joint research conducted with the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDD) at the Pediatric Healthcare Innovation Conference in Atlanta. NCBDDD is using mobile point-of-care technology developed by NJIT students and Bandera to ensure that children with disabilities receive timely flu vaccines. The conference, hosted by Georgia Tech and Emory University, focused on commercial technology developed through collaboration between engineering schools and healthcare providers.

of NJIT’s Center for Building Knowledge, delivered a presentation on architecture and building science research in the U.S. to faculty and students at Dali University in Dali, China. The presentation was part of a “Sustainable Housing and Design in Southwest China” study tour organized by the American Institute of Architects focused on sustainable development in Yunnan Province. The purpose of the tour was to explore the potential for implementing strategies for cultural preservation and sustainable development that have not yet been attempted elsewhere in China.

John D. Carpinelli, professor of

Nancy Jackson, professor in the department of chemistry and environmental science, has been elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. Jackson has conducted research assessing beaches behind detached breakwater systems on the Emilia Romagna coastline of the Adriatic Sea as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ferrara’s Department of Physics and Earth Science. This work has been funded in part by the National Geographic Society Research and Exploration Program.

electrical and computer engineering and executive director of the Center for Pre-College Programs, received the IEEE Computer Society’s 2014 Distinguished Contributions to Public Service in a Pre-College Environment Award. Carpinelli was cited for “outstanding contributions to pre-college STEM education with an emphasis on students from underrepresented populations.”

Clarisa Gonzalez Lenahan, associate director of graduate studies at NJIT, has been appointed to the New Jersey State Department’s Center for Hispanic Policy Research and Development Advisory Committee (CHPRD). Formerly known as the Office of Hispanic Affairs, the CHPRD seeks to empower and provide financial support and technical assistance to Hispanic community-based organizations throughout New Jersey, and ensure that the executive and legislative branches are informed of legislative initiatives with potential impact on the Hispanic community. Laurent Simon, associate profes-

sor in the Otto H. York Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering, has received an Outstanding Teaching Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. Raj Sodhi, professor in the

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, recently co-authored the book Mechanism Design: Visual and Programmable Approaches, published by the Taylor & Francis Group. Kevin Russell and Qiong Shen, two co-authors of the book, received their doctoral degrees from NJIT. Murray Turoff, distinguished professor emeritus, has been named a Sloan-C Fellow for his pioneering and visionary research in computer-mediated communications, learning-management systems, and the effectiveness of online learning. Turoff has been engaged in research and development involving computer-mediated communication systems since the late 1960s. Roman S. Voronov, an assistant professor in the Otto H. York Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering, is the co-author of “Bulk stress distributions in the pore space of sphere-packed beds under Darcy flow conditions,” published in Physical Review E – Kaleidoscope.

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POINT BY POINT

The latest news about NJIT sports: njithighlanders.com

PHOTOS: LARRY LEVANTI

FOUR NAMED TO DIVISION I ALL-STATE BASEBALL TEAMS

Ksenia Kuzmenko

Megan Guidry

WOMEN TAB ACADEMIC HONORS IN TENNIS NJIT tennis standouts Ksenia Kuzmenko* ’14 and Megan Guidry* ’14 were named to the 2014 America East Conference All-Academic Team for their performance on the court and in the classroom. They were two of six women’s tennis student-athletes from five member schools to be honored. Nominees must meet the standards of a cumulative GPA of 3.30 or better, have been a starter or significant reserve during the past year and participated in at least 50 percent of their team’s 6

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matches in 2014. Each nominee is then voted on by a committee of sports information directors, a faculty representative and senior woman administrator. NJIT, which played its first season as an associate member of the America East for women’s tennis, finished the season with an 11-8 overall record. The Highlanders advanced to the America East finals but fell short of winning the America East championship on the Highlanders’ first-ever try against top-seeded Stony Brook. Kuzmenko, who graduated from NJIT with a business degree in May, helped guide the Highlanders to a second-place finish at the 2014 America East Tournament. She earned America East First-Team singles honors,

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finishing with a 19-8 overall record (13-4 at first singles) and 8-2 in her last 10 matches. She went 13-4 in dual matches and 6-4 in tournament play. Kuzmenko and Jana Luste ’14 were selected as a 2014 America East First-Team doubles duo. They combined for a 16-8 overall record in doubles competition, all at the first spot. The pair went 11-3 in dual matches and 5-5 in tournament play. Guidry graduated in May with a biomedical engineering degree. She combined for a 4-6 singles record and went 5-6 in doubles competition. n *Dorman honors scholars

DJ Roche ’14, a Division I All-State pick, headlined a group of four NJIT players voted onto New Jersey Collegiate Baseball Association All-State Teams for 2014. The NJCBA, which encompasses all colleges and universities in New Jersey sponsoring intercollegiate baseball, picks separate AllState Teams for Division I and for Division II and Division III combined. The All-State Teams are chosen through balloting among the head coaches of all the baseball programs. The Highlanders were wellrepresented, with Roche taking first-team honors under the “utility” category for his work as a starting pitcher and his hitting. Roche won 11 games as a pitcher in his NJIT career and struck out 202 in 204.1 innings. He was a .291 career hitter in 457 at-bats, belting 34 doubles, 5 triples and 8 home runs, while driving in 91 runs. NJIT placed two men on the 15-man All-State Second Team – left-hander Ian Bentley, who tied the program Division I record with six wins, and outfielder Matt Weckerle. In addition, the NJCBA honored a 14-man All-Rookie Team, which included Alex Daniele, NJIT’s freshman right-handed starting pitcher. n

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GIVING Learn more and contribute at njit.edu/giving

Enrolled in the Educational Opportunity Program at NJIT, Vanessa Espinal ’14 knew that education would be her gateway to success. As she pursued a double major in history and law, technology and culture, her memorable NJIT experiences included internships at the New Jersey Law Review Commission and in the Superior Court of New Jersey under Passaic County Superior Court Judge and NJIT alumnus Sohail Mohammed ’88. Espinal was one of two student speakers who addressed scholarship donors and many other students who benefit from their generosity at the 26th Annual

CORNERSTONE OF SUPPORT Ongoing annual support by donors is a solid foundation for NJIT’s mission of inclusive education and pioneering research. This spring, at the inaugural Cornerstone Society Recognition Brunch, NJIT honored donors whose consecutive annual gifts help the university move forward with all of its commitments in education and research. Rodolfo Cilento ’54, who could not attend the brunch, was recognized as NJIT’s longest consecutive giving donor – for 44 years of continuous giving. Among the honorees in attendance was Bernie Lubetkin ’48, ’52, who has given back to his alma mater for more than 23 consecutive years. A World

Scholarship Brunch. “Words will never be enough to demonstrate the gratitude and appreciation I feel for each and every one of you,” she remarked in summarizing the importance of the financial assistance and other support that helped her achieve the goal of an NJIT degree. Also speaking was David “Nic” Thibodeaux ’14, a biomedical engineering major and Albert Dorman Honors College scholar. Thibodeaux, who worked in NJIT’s Vision and Neural Engineering Laboratory, said that the opportunity to do independent research as an undergraduate was a key part of his success as a student. He is beginning his doctoral studies at Columbia University this fall.

War II Navy veteran, Lubetkin joined his late older brother, Seymour ’47, at Newark College of Engineering with the assistance of the G.I. Bill. At NCE, Lubetkin’s academic pursuits were complemented by time on the basketball court and athletic experiences that led to his lifelong support for athletics at NJIT. Lubetkin’s name – and that of his wife, Beverly – are linked to NJIT athletics through their endowment of the Bernard and Beverly Lubetkin Athletic Scholarship. Lubetkin was joined at the brunch by his brother Charles ’53, who also was recognized for his years of consecutive giving. All of Lubetkin’s brothers have shared his enthusiasm

Scholarship Brunch student speakers Vanessa Espinal ’14 and David “Nic” Thibodeaux ’14.

“None of these experiences and opportunities would have been possible without the financial support of the Pappas, PSE&G Endowed, and David Garfield scholarships, which were made possible through Albert Dorman Honors College,” Thibodeaux said. Although students arrive at NJIT with unique backgrounds, they all share the dream of gaining the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in life, and many are able to do so because of the generosity of NJIT’s scholarship donors. In 2014, private-scholarship aid available increased to $2.85 million from

$2.6 million in 2013. Private scholarships assisted nearly 1,200 students in 2014 compared to 930 the previous year. Guest speaker Theodore D. Cassera ’72, a member of the NCE Board of Visitors and chairman of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department’s Industrial Advisory Board, praised the donors’ “spirit of generosity” as well as the “empowering, deeply appreciated, and life-changing” significance of their scholarships. n To learn more about establishing and supporting scholarships at NJIT, contact: Darlene Lamourt, director of donor engagement, at 973-596-3403 or darlene.lamourt@njit.edu.

Bernard M. “Bernie” Lubetkin ’48, ’52 (third from left) with his wife Beverly. He was recognized for more than 23 years of consecutive giving at the inaugural Cornerstone Society Brunch – with appreciation personally expressed by President Joel S. Bloom and Athletics Director Lenny Kaplan.

PHOTO: JED MEDINA

THE SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY

for athletics at NJIT, and they have generously supported the university in this area. NJIT has honored their commitment in a special way by dedicating the school’s athletic field, as the brothers wished, to the memory of their parents – naming it the Dorothy and William Lubetkin Athletic Field. The goal of the Cornerstone Society is to encourage consecutive years of giving back to NJIT.

Gifts in any amount given for five or more consecutive fiscal years are counted toward Cornerstone Society membership. n For more information, contact Monique Moore-Pryor, Esq., assistant vice president for planned giving, at 973-596-8548, mpryor@ njit.edu; or Terry McGuckin, director of annual giving, at 973596-5677, mcguckin@njit.edu.

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“ A SHORTAGE OF WATER RESOURCES COULD SPELL INCREASED CONFLICTS IN THE FUTURE. POPULATION GROWTH WILL MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE. SO WILL CLIMATE CHANGE. AS THE GLOBAL ECONOMY GROWS, SO WILL ITS THIRST. MANY MORE CONFLICTS LIE JUST OVER THE HORIZON.” — United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon

CRISIS OF QUANTITY AND QUALITY

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ILLUSTRATION: MARK SMITH

The global water picture is definitely troubling. Many millions of people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water and contract deadly diseases as a consequence of lacking this basic resource for life and health. Even where water is safe, supplies are dwindling in many areas. Devastating drought continues in the U.S. Southwest, with California enduring the worst drought conditions in centuries. And while there’s an abundance of water in the Northeast, concern is mounting over the challenges of maintaining purity due to contamination from industrial, agricultural and other sources. The reality is that the total amount of water in the world is estimated to be the same as it was in the era of the dinosaurs. The demands of our civilization could lead to violent international conflict over this vital finite resource. But there are positive steps that can be taken on various fronts to meet the global water crisis – steps such as those involving research under way at NJIT in the area of membrane-based technologies for providing pure water. NJIT MAGAZINE

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MAST MEMBRANE PROGRESS NJIT is host to the Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology Center (MAST), a National Science Foundation Multi-site Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. Kamalesh Sirkar, distinguished professor of chemical engineering, and Boris Khusid, professor of chemical engineering, are, respectively, the director and co-director of the MAST Center. MAST academic affiliates include the University of Arkansas and the University of Colorado at Boulder, and some of the world’s largest membrane-products companies are MAST Center sponsors. For two decades, MAST and NJIT initiatives have advanced membrane-technology progress to produce pure water by recycling and desalination, as well as for other applications in the medical, petrochemical, chemical, food and beverage industries. Essentially, all of these applications are based on the process of membrane separation, which depends on creating molecular-level gaps, or minute pores, in a membrane. The membrane is placed in a housing to make a membrane module. The size of the membrane gaps/pores is the key to determining which molecular or macromolecular components in a liquid or gas will pass though the membrane from a region of high concentration to a region of much lower concentration, even blocking the passage of particular molecules almost entirely. The approximate diameters of the pores in 10

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microfilter, ultrafilter and nanofilter membranes are, in descending order, .02 to 10 microns, 1 to 100 nanometers, and 0.5 to 2 nanometers. A micron is a millionth of a meter, and it would take some 1,000 microns to equal the thickness of a U.S. dime. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, or the equivalent of 10 hydrogen atoms in a row. Increasingly, reverse osmosis (RO) is the membrane technology used for desalinating seawater and purifying what is known as “produced water” that results from extraction of petroleum and natural gas. In reverse osmosis, the pressure differences on the two sides of a membrane having molecular-level gaps of 0.3 to 0.5 nanometers cause the separation of salt or other molecules. Today, desalination plants based on membrane technology are part of the landscape in regions such as the Middle East and North Africa, where they produce millions of gallons of fresh water daily. Plants of this type are also operating in coastal areas as well as in arid regions of the United States. A MAGNETIC CHALLENGE At NJIT, Khusid is working to improve reverse-osmosis purification technology, an effort that has involved addressing the internal buildup of a type of scale, or precipitate, that compromises membrane performance and is difficult to remove from RO systems. His work has been funded by the U.S. Bureau

Some of the membrane units at a commercial-scale reverse-osmosis desalination plant.

of Reclamation, which assists the Western States and Native American Tribes with water-resource management. One project is testing the claim that passing water entering an RO unit through magnets will inhibit the formation of an undesirable heterogeneous precipitate consisting of salt and other material as an alternative to treatment with costly chemicals that also present a disposal problem. Khusid explains that this has required developing bench-scale methodology for assessing the claims made for largescale systems operating over long periods. DISTILLING ANOTHER OPTION Sirkar’s wide-ranging membrane-separation research includes development of membrane distillation (MD) as another technological option for increasing the world’s supply of pure water. MD is a thermally-driven process that could be an attractive alternative to reverse osmosis under certain conditions. Although it requires more energy in the form of heat, the internal pressure in an MD system would be much lower. Potentially, that translates into significantly lower costs for the membranes needed, as they would not have to tolerate the thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch typical of RO systems used to purify highly saline water.

“ MEMBRANE DISTILLATION COULD BE A VIABLE, COST-EFFECTIVE OPTION WHERE THE WATER TO BE PROCESSED IS HIGHLY SALINE AND THERE IS SUFFICIENT GEOTHERMAL OR SOLAR ENERGY OR WASTE HEAT AVAILABLE.” “We are at a formative stage in the practical development of membrane distillation,” Sirkar says. “We are studying the fundamentals, such as defining basic characteristics of the membranes that will be needed so that manufacturers will be able to provide them for commercial units. But membrane distillation could be a viable, cost-effective option where the water to be processed is highly saline and there is sufficient geothermal or solar energy or waste heat available.” THE NANOTUBE ADVANTAGE The potential of membrane distillation could also be enhanced by introducing carbon nanotubes into the pores of MD system membranes, as demonstrated by Somenath Mitra, distinguished professor of chemistry and environmental science. One atom thick and about 10,000 times smaller than a human hair in diameter, carbon nanotubes are already used in numerous consumer products ranging from packaging to cosmetics and medicines. With respect to membrane distillation, Mitra’s innovation of immobilizing carbon nanotubes in the pores of the membrane increases water-vapor permeation and prevents liquid water from clogging the pores. Tests have

shown dramatic increases in the amount of salt removed from the feed-water stream and overall production of pure water, increases achieved at an operating temperature substantially lower than that required when using a membrane without the nanotubes. “Together, these benefits add up to a greener process that could make membrane distillation economically competitive with other desalination technologies as a way to provide people with pure water where it is most needed,” says Mitra. JUST PART OF THE SPECTRUM Advances in membrane-based water-purification technology comprise just one aspect of research at NJIT dedicated to confronting the water crisis in the U.S. and other countries. Faculty in diverse departments and disciplines, joined by undergraduate and graduate students, are engaged in environmental-monitoring, water-resource management, and civil-engineering initiatives focused on solutions for this growing global challenge. n Look for more about work at NJIT across the spectrum of these leading-edge water initiatives in future issues. mastcenter.org chemicaleng.njit.edu chemistry.njit.edu

PHOTO: DERIC RAYMOND

Author: Dean L. Maskevich is editor of NJIT Magazine.

Engaged in bench-scale tests at NJIT to improve reverse-osmosis membrane water-purification technology are (from left) Ezinwa Elele MS ’06, Ph.D.’11, research scientist; Boris Khusid, professor of chemical engineering; Qian Lei, master’s candidate and laboratory assistant; and Dana Qasem, undergraduate senior.

BY THE NUMBERS

— Kamalesh Sirkar, distinguished professor of chemical engineering

GLOBAL WATER WARNING A sampling of current statistics and projections clearly signals the need for more pure water worldwide:

1.2

• An estimated 1.2 billion people live in areas with BILLION inadequate water supplies.

3.4

• More than 3.4 million people die each year due MILLION to a lack of pure water and proper sanitation. • Nearly one out of every five deaths of children under the age of five worldwide results from a waterrelated disease.

400

• Water-related diseases cause young students to MILLION lose over 400 million school days every year. • Half of the hospital beds in the world are filled with people suffering from water-related diseases.

• In developing countries, as much as 80 percent of PERCENT all illness is linked to impure water and poor sanitation. • Inadequate water and sanitation have cost Sub-Saharan African countries more in lost GDP than the entire continent received in development aid. • Water use is increasing much faster than the world’s population. • It’s projected that people in twothirds of the world will live under conditions of water scarcity by 2025.

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RESEARCHING FUNDAMENTAL

RHYTHMS OF LIFE

Evolution has harmonized the behavior of humans and all other mammals with fundamental rhythms of life that include the cycle of light and dark experienced each day and with seasonal change. The brainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s circadian clock controls hormone production related to natural patterns of sleeping/waking behavior which, when disrupted by experiences such as jet lag or night-shift work, can have adverse health effects. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a vital physiological process intrinsic to our mood and alertness, but one that has yet to be fully understood.

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PHOTO: ANUOLUWAPO AKEREDOLU

Assistant Professor Casey Diekman

Gaining greater insight into the biological clock that sets the pace for daily life is the focus of a transatlantic research effort involving Casey Diekman, assistant professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. Diekman’s work, which is being funded by a three-year grant of more than $233,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), could yield new knowledge for the U.S. national BRAIN Initiative – an acronym for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. MODEL CONTRIBUTIONS Diekman joined the NJIT faculty in 2013, after post-doctoral work at the NSF-funded Mathematical Biosciences Institute at Ohio State University. His primary goal as the NSF grant’s principal investigator is to develop mathematical models that will promote understanding of the role that our internal clock’s electrical activity plays in circadian timekeeping, in particular the way the clock responds to the natural light/dark cycle. Diekman is collaborating with Professor Hugh Piggins and Research Associate Mino Belle at the University of Manchester in England. Piggins’ laboratory is providing experimental biological data about electrical activity in the brain at the cellular level, specifically with respect to the influence of dynamic changes in gene expression on neurons in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN. Gene expression is the process by which DNA is translated into proteins, and proteins are

A GROUP OF ABOUT 20,000 NEURONS IN THE HYPOTHALAMUS RECEIVES INFORMATION ABOUT THE LIGHT/DARK CYCLE FROM THE EXTERNAL WORLD THROUGH THE RETINA THAT CAN AFFECT THE CIRCADIAN PROCESS. THE JOB OF THIS PART OF THE BRAIN IS TO KNOW WHAT TIME OF DAY IT IS. the engines of most physiological functions, including circadian behavior. A group of about 20,000 neurons in the hypothalamus, the SCN receives information about the light/dark cycle from the external world through the retina that can affect the circadian process. “The job of this part of the brain is to know what time of day it is,” Diekman says succinctly. It is a job that the SCN also may do without direct exposure to external light/dark conditions. TWO VASTLY DIFFERENT TIME SCALES At the neuronal level, the interplay of several ionic currents within SCN neurons produces electrical oscillations on the time scale of milliseconds. Ultimately, these electrical signals add up to our daily behavior patterns. Experimentally, the challenge has been to collect data about these currents under precisely controlled light/dark conditions in order to study how SCN activity may vary over a particular period, such as 24 hours. While collecting this data is a very labor-intensive process, it provides the raw material for Diekman’s mathematical modeling. A key goal of the resulting model is to integrate the experimental data into a comprehensive physiological portrait to simulate neuronal activity and clarify the discrete roles of various ionic currents, Diekman explains. And a major mathematical objective is to take information about biological events that occur on a millisecond time scale and determine how

they collectively affect 24-hour behavioral patterns. The model can then be used to make predictions about the circadian time-keeping process that can be verified in the laboratory, and to suggest new experiments that will add to our knowledge in this area. “We want to understand the interaction between two different biological ‘oscillators’ operating on two vastly different time scales,” Diekman says. Preliminary results obtained by Diekman and his research colleagues suggest that the circadian rhythms they are studying comprise a truly intrinsic process rooted in “hardwired” neuronal electrical programming. More specifically, as suggested by Diekman’s modeling, the neurons in the SCN will begin to enter a state where they are less active in the afternoon. In this state, the neurons’ electrical activity has an especially pronounced effect on gene expression, influencing hormone production and other physiological indicators without external light/dark exposure. It is a rhythm deeply encoded in our DNA. As a component of the BRAIN Initiative, Diekman’s work has broader implications as well. He anticipates that deeper understanding of the flow of information involved at the cellular level will aid in the development of mathematical models of brain processes such as long-term memory formation. The project also could impact areas of mathematical biology beyond circadian rhythms by advancing development of computer-simulation methods capable of handling widely disparate time scales. n math.njit.edu

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“ WE WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE INTERACTION BETWEEN TWO DIFFERENT BIOLOGICAL ‘OSCILLATORS’ OPERATING ON TWO VASTLY DIFFERENT TIME SCALES.”

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ENGINEERING A NEW VISION FOR NCE Q&A WITH DEAN MOSHE KAM Moshe Kam, the new dean of Newark College of Engineering, comes to NJIT from Drexel University, where he served as the Robert Quinn Professor and Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Kam, who holds a Ph.D. from Drexel, is a former president and chief executive officer of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and member of the boards of directors of the accreditation agency ABET Inc. and the United Engineering Foundation. Before becoming a department head at Drexel, Kam served as technical coordinator for the U.S. Department of Defense funded project ACIN (Applied Communication and Information Networking) and as director of Drexel’s Center for Excellence in Information Assurance Education. He had also served as principal investigator on more than 30 projects funded by the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Naval Surface Warfare Center, the U.S. Army, Lockheed Martin and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Kam is a Fellow of IEEE “for contributions to the theory of decision fusion and distributed detection,” and recipient of an IEEE Third Millennium Medal. He received a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award (1990-1995) and is a licensed Professional Engineer registered in the State of Pennsylvania. Following are thoughts that Dean Kam recently shared with Christina Crovetto, assistant editor of NJIT Magazine.

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What motivated you to study engineering?

The enthusiasm to build new things, to build new machines and devices, to create new processes that can have a positive impact on the way we live. When I was entering engineering in the 1970s, my main interest was communications. So consider, for example, what engineers have done for the field of communications since then. Take the cell phone. Think about how it has transformed the way we communicate, and what it means for developing communities, such as communities in parts of Africa and Asia that did not have infrastructure for landlines before that invention. A revealing example was described in a Washington Post article a few years ago. Their reporter visited fishermen in a village near India’s southern tip who, due to the availability of cell phones, were able to contact different markets as they still collected fish at sea. They used the information to find out what the fish sell for so that they knew where to head when they got to shore. They often even sold the catch while at sea. This process has eliminated the middlemen on whom these fishermen relied before, increased efficiency of the markets, and completely changed the way the local economy works. I could not really envision a development such as this when I was still thinking about my future vocation as a teenager. But I knew that by becoming an engineer I would not be doing the same kind of work 10 years in the future as when I entered the field. I knew that engineering is dynamic, that it changes many of its practices and techniques every decade. This thought was – and still is – very appealing. There is little relationship between the research that I am doing now and what I studied in school or worked on during my first job. Engineering is a field that almost guarantees the opportunity to move on from one area of interest to another as technology and society change, to be surprised every few years by new developments, and to learn how to adapt and be inventive and original again with a completely new set of tools. The other side of the coin is that when I became an engineer I signed up for lifelong learning. A commitment to lifelong learning is a professional necessity for all engineers. You can’t just finish school and say, “I’ve got it. I know what I need to know and now I can coast.” You

need to update your arsenal of tools and adjust your worldview every few years. In this respect, engineering is a lasting, ongoing adventure. More specifically, why did you decide to study electrical engineering?

While I was interested in several areas of engineering as a student – as I am today – I found the potential of electronic and optical communications especially exciting. I grew up when communications was evolving from an analog to a digital discipline, with the additional potential of computing entering the picture. In electronic communications I could work with technology that ranged from antenna design to integrating computers into wide-area networks. At the age I started to think about this, I couldn’t foresee exactly what changes would occur. However, I did feel that this technology would change the way we live, that much more bandwidth would be available to each one of us, that new devices and new frequencies would open up. I wanted to be part of it. Why did you decide to become an engineering educator?

Being an educator was not on my mind when I began working as an engineer in microwave communications. However, I did come to a point where I realized that I needed more education beyond my undergraduate studies. It was when I was working on a microwave link that behaved unexpectedly. After a few weeks of trying to understand and repair it, we decided to call an expert from a local university to help us with the apparently difficult electromagnetic propagation problem we had encountered. The expert did a magnificent analysis, thorough and elegant. His equations explained exactly what caused our “abnormal” observations and what needed to be done. I was humbled and impressed. This event turned out to be very important to me. It demonstrated that if I were to do work at a higher level, to be able to address more sophisticated challenges, I had better get more education. I decided to go to graduate school. As I was getting more education, I was also looking at the people who were providing me with this education. Increasingly, I realized how vital engineering education is to society. I started my career in education with small steps, as a teaching assistant. I discovered I can do it, I like it, and it makes an impact.

“ THERE IS A VERY STRONG LINK BETWEEN ‘HAVING YOUR FINGER ON THE PULSE OF TECHNOLOGY’ AND THE ABILITY TO BE A MEANINGFUL EDUCATOR.” At the same time, even as teaching became an important part of my life, I was always engaged in engineering field work, in research, development and testing, and in meeting the needs of clients. There is a very strong link between “having your finger on the pulse of technology” and the ability to be a meaningful educator. It is essential to retain a very good understanding of what it means to build, to deploy technology in a practical way, to meet specifications. Have you always combined work as an educator with significant commitments in other areas?

I have tried. In addition to working on projects for industry and the U.S. government, I became an active volunteer in IEEE, a large professional association active around the globe. My activities as an IEEE volunteer exposed me to many professional colleagues around the world, to schools in two dozen countries, and to interesting projects and local challenges that would have otherwise been known to me only from second-hand reports. Becoming a volunteer for such an association was one of my best professional decisions. What attracted you to NJIT and Newark College of Engineering?

PHOTO: ANUOLUWAPO AKEREDOLU

I was familiar with NJIT for a long time. There are many good engineering schools, but there aren’t many universities where engineering is such a principal focus as it was at Drexel University and as it is at NJIT. I also knew many faculty members at NJIT as professional colleagues, reviewers of my papers, speakers at the same conferences I attended and, to be honest, as competitors for research grants. I believed I understood the student population of NJIT fairly well, the background, aspirations and career objectives of NJIT’s engineering students. I had reached the point in my career where a dean’s position was the next logical step. The availability of the position at this level at NJIT – a school I knew, appreciated and understood – was an ideal opportunity. The ad NJIT had placed for the dean of NCE described my dream job. What is your vision for the future of NCE? Like all engineering schools, we have not yet seen the full impact of computing on engineering. We have not seen the inevitable integration of engineering with the life sciences, [continued] NJIT MAGAZINE

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“ IF YOU ARE AN ENGINEER TODAY, COMPUTING IS YOUR FIRST LANGUAGE. I AM NOT TALKING JUST ABOUT COMPUTER ENGINEERS; I’M TALKING ABOUT ALL ENGINEERS.”

“ THE ‘MARRIAGE’ BETWEEN ENGINEERING AND THE LIFE SCIENCES IS GUARANTEED TO BE ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING FOREFRONTS OF TECHNOLOGY OVER THE NEXT 50 YEARS.” the life sciences that affects many aspects of engineering. We need to be aware of it if we are to prepare our students for the environment they will encounter after graduation. The “marriage” between engineering and the life sciences is guaranteed to be one of the most exciting forefronts of technology over the next 50 years. We need to emphasize this connection and the opportunities it presents, not just for biomedical engineering students, but for those majoring in virtually every branch of engineering.

ILLUSTRATIONS: HARRY CAMPBELL

You’ve mentioned the relationship between engineering and society several times. Should the programs at NCE promote a greater awareness of this relationship?

and we have not seen the increased transformation of the engineer from a technical expert to an agent of societal change. These are three key areas that promise to keep engineering vital, exciting and relevant. We must be in the lead at NJIT, and make sure that our students are at the forefront of technological change. Mastery of computing is part of this challenge. If you are an engineer today, computing is your first language. I am not talking just about computer engineers; I’m talking about all engineers. Computing has become central to the way all engineers work and function. When there are interesting specifications and challenges in an engineering project, the first question is often “What are the software assets that I can mobilize to start attacking this problem?” If we were to revise our engineering curriculum from the beginning, a revision that would happen in time anyway, courses and labs in computing would be there on par with the courses in mathematics and physics that for almost a century were considered the fundamentals of engineering education. Computing, 18

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the theory of algorithms, computational complexity, and even programming would be there at the core of engineering education. Directing the curriculum on this path is a considerable but absolutely necessary and timely challenge. A second challenge is the increasing necessity to address the needs encountered at the intersection of engineering and the life sciences. Many more engineers will be working at this intersection, in areas that range from medical imaging to smart prosthetics. When I became president of IEEE, I was invited to speak at an annual meeting of engineers in France, a meeting that I attended only once before, 20 years earlier. During my previous opportunity to attend, this group was dominated by engineers working on power generation, electronics, and communications. I do not think there was one engineer among them who was engaged in the biomedical field. Two decades later, fully one third of the attendees had jobs related directly to biology and the life sciences; they were working directly with physicians, nurses and patients. This is a strong trend toward

Yes, absolutely. We do want the engineers who come from NJIT to have a solid understanding of how their work affects people’s lives, how their inventions and practices shape the community where they live, and to be aware of the relevant needs, desires and hopes of their “target audience,” namely the general public. Some years ago, I did some consulting in wireless communication for communities in New Jersey. I found myself spending a lot of time in zoning-board meetings speaking about the location and number of planned cell-phone towers. In this country, zoning boards represent democracy in its rawest and purest form. Members of the boards are individuals from the community who get together to solve local problems. They hired me to help them with one of their problems. During these meetings, I met often with engineers sent to represent the major telecommunication companies that planned the cell phone towers. I had taught some of these engineers personally at Drexel. It dawned on me that we had never prepared our students for this kind of activity. We prepared our students to devise the network and plan the communication link, but we did not prepare them to stand in front of fellow citizens who typically know very little about the intricacies and performance of communication systems. My former students needed to speak to the board members in a way that is accurate, informative and persuasive, yet honest. These engineers should have been concerned with more than just the financial interests of the companies that sent them to make a presentation. They should have been aware of what is best for the

community, and how to explain technical matters that often are quite complex to a lay audience. On a larger scale, as engineering educators, I felt that we did not pay enough attention to this aspect, to what we teach our students about the social impact, positive and negative, of what we develop and implement as engineers. We have educated students to design and manufacture devices like the smartphone, which almost everybody here carries today. However, quite often we leave it for “someone else” to worry about the social and environmental implications of what we have built, advertised and marketed – about the way the smartphone affects our community. Addressing the social impact of engineering is a challenge for all engineering schools, and one that I think we at NJIT are very qualified and ready to address. It is a most important goal, of course, to give our students the knowledge and technical skills needed to investigate, specify, research, design, implement, test and market methods, tools and products. It is equally important that students also understand what these do for society, and how what engineers design can be better integrated into the fabric of life, be safer, be more widely and equitably affordable, be friendlier to the environment and sustainable, and be used for the common good. What should be done to encourage more young women to choose STEM careers?

There is full acceptance of women today in professions that were essentially closed to them a century ago, such as law and medicine. Still, there are too many individuals who do not believe that engineering is an appropriate career choice for women. There is obvious gender bias in how many high school students are counseled about engineering. Too many authority figures – parents, teachers, guidance counselors – will not suggest engineering as a career choice for young women, or will do so reluctantly and unenthusiastically. This attitude needs to change. In many engineering enterprises, the work environment for women is still less accommodating compared to the work environment in other occupations. Increasingly, employers understand the need to improve accommodation for women engineers, but in some parts of our industry we still have a long way to go. Women are 50 percent of the population, but just about 20 percent of engineering students are women. Because of this gap, our profession

loses access to a tremendous pool of talent. It is a major responsibility we have at NJIT to send the message to young women that the engineering career path deserves their consideration. To this end we must also ensure the presence and influence of role models that help to deliver and internalize this message. We need to get to gender equality among students in engineering schools as we – almost – have in the student populations in medicine and law. What gives you the greatest satisfaction as an educator and an engineer?

I’ll give you a specific example to answer the question. My first Ph.D. student was Amit Goffer, who is now president and chief technical officer of a company called ReWalk. The FDA recently announced that a device that he designed at ReWalk has been approved for use in the United States. This device is for individuals who have spinal injuries and cannot walk as a result. The device is an exoskeleton made mainly of metal that, with the associated control algorithms, sensing and power, allows

many paraplegics to raise themselves from their wheelchairs and walk. This is an awesome achievement. Amit is extremely talented and original – I certainly did not teach him how to accomplish this feat. Still, you want to think that you had something to do with this exciting accomplishment, maybe something you taught, maybe resources you helped provide. Academic administrators often sit in closed rooms, discuss infrastructure, and spend a lot of effort on budgets. It may feel sometimes that it would be more exciting to go to the lab instead, and try a new robotic arm or a new chemical compound. However, at the end of the day, the reason we academic administrators spend so much time on infrastructure and on budgets is so that we can give students – students like Amit Goffer – the resources they need to research and develop innovations that culminate eventually in inventions like ReWalk’s exoskeleton. When you see the innovations materialize, you realize that you are engaged in a useful effort. n engineering.njit.edu NJIT MAGAZINE

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“ THE ‘MARRIAGE’ BETWEEN ENGINEERING AND THE LIFE SCIENCES IS GUARANTEED TO BE ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING FOREFRONTS OF TECHNOLOGY OVER THE NEXT 50 YEARS.” community, and how to explain technical matters that often are quite complex to a lay audience. On a larger scale, as engineering educators, I felt that we did not pay enough attention to this aspect, to what we teach our students about the social impact, positive and negative, of what we develop and implement as engineers. We have educated students to design and manufacture devices like the smartphone, which almost everybody here carries today. However, quite often we leave it for “someone else” to worry about the social and environmental implications of what we have built, advertised and marketed – about the way the smartphone affects our community. Addressing the social impact of engineering is a challenge for all engineering schools, and one that I think we at NJIT are very qualified and ready to address. It is a most important goal, of course, to give our students the knowledge and technical skills needed to investigate, specify, research, design, implement, test and market methods, tools and products. It is equally important that students also understand what these do for society, and how what engineers design can be better integrated into the fabric of life, be safer, be more widely and equitably affordable, be friendlier to the environment and sustainable, and be used for the common good. What should be done to encourage more young women to choose STEM careers?

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PHOTO: CHRISTINA CROVETTO

ALUMNI CIRCUIT

STEPPING UP TO THE PRESIDENTIAL PLATE John Wagner, who introduces himself as “Jack,” began his tenure as president of the Alumni Association on the first day of September. Today, retired from a very accomplished career in business – 34 years with IBM – Jack shares his real-world experience with students as an adjunct professor in the School of Management. He has also served on the School of Management’s Board of Visitors and in 2005 was recognized for leadership in the school as a University Ambassador by IBM. Jack has now stepped up to the presidential plate to help move the Alumni Association toward a winning future of greater alumni engagement with a growing roster of activities and benefits. He invites all alumni to share their suggestions and concerns, or to just say “hello,” by contacting him at jww6@njit.edu. But to introduce Jack in his own words…

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I am honored to have been chosen to be the next president of the Alumni Association of NJIT. I cannot start my role as president without thanking Joe Stanley for the work he has done over the past several years as president, dedicating himself to the advancement of the association. Through the efforts of Joe and Steve Saperstein, the Alumni Association has reached new levels on all fronts. The Alumni Council is now in its second year and growing in numbers; Alumni Weekend in May had record attendance; and the Young Alumni Club has become an active and viable force within the association. In addition, the Regional Clubs have exciting and creative programs with excellent leadership across the country. With all of that activity in place, stepping into the leadership role after Joe Stanley is no small task. The good news is that people like Joe, Steve and Anita Rubino are committed to continuing to do the great job that we know they do. Recent elections have brought many other new faces to the team, and we are all excited to work together to advance alumni activities for NJIT.

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“ NJIT is most definitely not standing still, and its leaders have a vision to take it to new and even higher levels.” — Jack Wagner ’74

On a personal level, I graduated in 1974 from NCE with a degree in computer science and a minor in industrial engineering. I then spent 34 years working for IBM, and it was a very fast-paced business experience. NJIT prepared me well to compete within IBM and to reach the executive role that I attained. I held a variety of field and headquarters management positions, and also spearheaded IBM’s transition from a product orientation to a solutions-based model. Little did I know when I graduated from NJIT that I would find myself in a global business role 34 years later. But I found that my involvement with groups like the Student Activity Council, The Vector, and other student organizations gave me a much broader experience than just the knowledge obtained in the classroom. One of my key accomplishments as a student at NJIT was learning to ski – in the gym – on the “historic” ski deck. Skiing became a passion of mine in my freshman year and remains so today. Skiing also gave me the opportunity to meet my wife and for us to have a sport that we enjoyed together and would share with our son for many years. That’s what NJIT is like. It prepares you for life, not just for the business world. When I retired from IBM in 2008, I started doing some business consulting, and I am still active in that area. Retirement also gave me an opportunity to devote more time to another passion of mine, which is photography. I was also on the Board of Visitors for the NJIT School of Management and had been a guest lecturer when I was asked if I was interested in teaching. So much for a “plan of retirement!”

I am now teaching in the School of Management and have developed new classes that I feel can expand the quality of education and the experience for NJIT students. I am very excited about my “second career.” My philosophy of teaching is simple: involvement by the students and real-life business examples. Dr. Estrin (“Doc”) was my role model, and I remember how he always got us involved as students. Whether it was in activities or in the classroom, he focused on involvement and core skills. Doc taught us “engineers” to write and speak! Not an easy task, but one that gave me an invaluable skill that I was able to use to advance my career at IBM many times over. So I am back on the NJIT campus and loving it. It is very different here today in comparison to my time as a student. Diversity has taken on a new dimension. The extent of the curriculum is out of this world, and the advancement of the campus into what it is today would have been simply impossible to imagine! NJIT is most definitely not standing still, and its leaders have a vision to take it to new and even higher levels. It is for those reasons that I wanted to become president of the Alumni Association. I want to be part of the advancement of the NJIT ecosystem. Our alumni, past and future, are a very important part of the growth of NJIT. I want to work hard to take our alumni involvement to the next level. I want to make sure that our current students understand the value of the Alumni Association and that they make use of the resources that are available. People have asked me what my goals are for the Alumni

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! Share your news, photos, memories Do you have news about your career, your family, an avocation? Share it in a class note for NJIT Magazine. We’re also interested in photos that show the NJIT campus and students in years past. You can send scanned photos as jpeg files to the editor (dean.l.maskevich@njit.edu) or prints to the Alumni Relations Office at the address below. We’ll take good care of your photos and return them promptly after scanning.

Association. My response is simply to continue to advance the organization and to collaborate with Alumni Relations each step along the way. I feel we need to focus on communications and improve the infrastructure of the team. That includes making better use of advanced communications technologies, like social media, to extend the reach of the team. I would also like to increase our visibility across our ecosystem, and that includes the current student body. We need to be linked to NJIT each step along the way and I am excited about the focus on innovation and entrepreneurship at the university. I am confident that we can have a key role in the advancement of those efforts. But I also want to hear from you and value your input on what YOU want from the Alumni Association. In closing, I want to say that I am very proud to be stepping into this role. I view the goal to be a focus on teamwork and communications. Everything I do will be centered around the NJIT vision and the advancement of the Alumni Association. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. n

ANNUAL HONORS FOR ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE Newark College of Engineering marked 16 years in March of honoring the accomplishments of notable alumni, industry partners and high-achieving students at the college’s annual Salute to Engineering Excellence. This year, Donald Cronin, ’75 and Edward J. Schmeltz, ’71 each received an Outstanding Alumnus Award.

Langan Engineering & Environmental Services was the recipient

of the Outstanding Industry Partnership Award – an award accepted on behalf of the firm by David Gockel ’81, president and CEO. Cronin, who majored in civil engineering, is president of Alternative Technologies, Inc. In the course of a career spanning more than three decades, he has been a leader in the analysis, design, integration and implementation of materials-handling, material-flow and inventory-control systems for many of the world’s largest and most prestigious companies in a wide variety of industries.

Donald Cronin

Cronin’s active involvement in professional organizations has included membership in the Material Handling and Management Society, and serving as president and chairman of the board of the Warehouse Education and Research Council of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and as a board member and past president of the Material Handling Society of New Jersey. He has been the scholarship chairman for the society’s Annual Fundraising Scholarship Golf Outing, which benefits NJIT and Rutgers University. Over the years, Cronin has shared his professional experience as a featured speaker for events hosted by the Association for Operations Management, the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, the Material

Would you like to share a memory of your NJIT experience that you think might interest the readers of NJIT Magazine? Don’t hesitate to send a paragraph, or several, to the editor as well. And be sure to let us know if you have a new address. For Class Notes: On the Web, use the form at njit.edu/alumni/classnotes. By e-mail, send news with graduation year(s) to alumni-classnotes@njit.edu. Via U.S. mail to: 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

Handling Society of New Jersey, and the Warehouse Education and Research Council. An accomplished marine civil engineer, Schmeltz is senior vice president and director of maritime and special projects for AECOM Technology Corporation. The Pier 400 Development at the Port of Los Angeles, one of the largest landfill projects ever undertaken, the breakwater reconstruction for the Port of Sines in Portugal, and a tender design for the third set of locks on the Panama Canal are but three of his outstanding accomplishments. Schmeltz’s work with the United States Navy includes designing berthing and support facilities for the battleships U.S.S. Iowa in New York and the U.S.S. Missouri in Pearl Harbor; entrance-channel improvements for nuclear aircraft carriers in San Diego, California; berthing and support facilities for Trident nuclear submarines in Kings Bay, Edward J. Schmeltz Georgia; and

magnetic-silencing facilities in numerous classified locations to improve security for all classes of U.S. naval vessels deployed around the world. His landmark design work on restoring Whiskey Island, one of the barrier islands protecting New Orleans, will help to keep that city safe from Katrina-like disasters. A Fellow of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Schmeltz is a founding member of ASCE’s Coastal, Ocean, Ports and River Institute. He continues to be engaged at NJIT as a member of the Albert Dorman Honors College Board of Visitors. Langan, the Outstanding Industry Partner for 2014, was founded in 1970 and is headquartered in Elmwood Park, New Jersey. The firm provides integrated site engineering and environmental consulting services for private developers, property owners, and public-sector clients. Familiarity with New Jersey, particularly with respect to subsurface conditions, utilities and regulatory policies, has earned Langan the reputation of the “go-to consultant” for

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ALUMNI CIRCUIT challenging projects throughout the state. The more than 800 professionals employed at the firm include nearly 50 NJIT graduates. It has been ranked among the top Green Design Firms by Engineering News-Record and among the Best Engineering Firms to Work For by CE News. Langan and NJIT recently strengthened their alliance with a collaborative research agreement. Langan Vice President Stewart Abrams and NJIT Professor of Environmental Engineering Michel Boufadel direct Langan’s Remediation Technology Program at NJIT’s Center for Natural Resources Development and Protection. Together, Langan and NJIT have been performing joint applied research on clean-up technologies for various Langan Fortune 500 and private site-development clients. Among the NCE student honorees, Pedro Santos* was named both outstanding senior in his major – Civil and Environmental Engineering – and outstanding senior of the year. Other seniors recognized for their exceptional academic achievements were David S. Ching*, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering; Margaret Christian*, Biomedical Engineering; Cindy Manrique*, Engineering Technology; Victor Razuk*, Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering; and Jay Vargas*, Electrical and Computer Engineering. Pooja Sheth*, Biomedical Engineering, was recognized with the Saul K. Fenster Innovation in Design Award. Elaine Gomez*, Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering, received the Madame Mau Outstanding Female Engineering Student Award; and Yasmine Aly, Chemical, Biological

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and Pharmaceutical Engineering, was honored as the outstanding graduate student. *Dorman honors scholars

ASCE LIFETIME AWARDS Nicholas DeNichilo and Edward Schmeltz In March, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) will formally bestow one of its highest honors, the Outstanding Projects And Leaders (OPAL) Lifetime Achievement award, on two NJIT alumni who have made substantial and lasting contributions to the field of engineering. The awards, given annually, recognize engineering leaders who have made a significant difference in one of five key areas: construction, design, education, government and management. Nicholas DeNichilo ’73, ’78, the president and CEO of Hatch Mott MacDonald (HMM) is the 2015 OPAL honoree for management for his dynamic leadership of one of the country’s largest and most influential engineering firms. Edward J. Schmeltz ’71, who also received an Outstanding Alumnus Award at the 2014 NCE Salute to Engineering Excellence, is senior vice president and director of maritime and special projects for AECOM Technology Corp. He won the 2015 OPAL award for design for his marine engineering work around the globe. Under DeNichilo’s leadership, HMM has more than tripled in size, from a staff of 866 in 2002 to 2,700 in 2014, with engineers in 76 offices across the United States and Canada. ASCE noted that the firm now ranks 31st on the 2014 Engineering News-Record’s list of Top 500 design firms and attributes its success to

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“ It is uncommon for a grad student to have his own lab, but some of the greats all started in garages — think of Edison, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — so I’m just keeping with tradition!” — Vatsal A. Shah ’08, ’09

DeNichilo’s desire to maintain a “strong culture of providing quality services, safety, ethics, professionalism, and innovative solutions.” Schmeltz was recognized for designing some of what ASCE deems “the finest and most iconic and leading-edge projects,” including the Pier 400 Development for the Port of Los Angeles. He has been responsible for projects in a variety of ports and harbors in the U.S. and internationally, including his work with the Navy in designing berth and support facilities for the battleships U.S.S. Iowa in New York and U.S.S. Missouri in Pearl Harbor. His coastal engineering projects include the restoration of Whiskey Island, one of the barrier islands that protect New Orleans.

RECOGNIZING EXCEPTIONAL ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT In what has become an Alumni Weekend tradition, the Alumni Association of NJIT honored six graduates for exceptional achievements in the private and public sectors at a dinner enjoyed by the honorees along with family members and friends. New for 2014 was the presentation of the first GeNext Award to Vatsal A. Shah for significant professional accomplishments by a young graduate.

VATSAL A. SHAH ’08, ’09 The New Face of Civil Engineering Vatsal Shah is only 27, yet he’s already accomplished much in his young life. At age 23, he was one of the youngest persons in New Jersey to be licensed as a Professional

Vatsal Shah

Engineer. The American Society of Civil Engineers named him the 2013 “New Face of Civil Engineering.” He works as a project engineer for Hatch Mott MacDonald (HMM), where he has helped the global engineering firm create a geotechnical sub-practice. Shah has two NJIT degrees: his 2008 bachelor’s and a 2009 master’s in civil engineering. Though he works full-time, he’s also pursuing a doctorate part-time at NJIT. He studies civil and environmental engineering with a focus on geotechnical engineering – the study of soil behavior. He has his own laboratory in South Plainfield, where he models landfills and how they behave. Landfills take up valuable urban space and his research could help towns reclaim landfills for other uses. His lab is self-funded. Sleep? What sleep? He routinely puts in 17-hour days – long hours of work and study. In 2014, the Alumni Association of NJIT gave Shah the GeNext Award for Alumni Achievement. It’s an honor bestowed upon young alumni for significant professional accomplishments. He was the first NJIT grad to receive the award. Despite these achievements, Shah admits he wasn’t always an achiever.

“ We wanted to solve aesthetic issues while also increasing functionality. Much of what I saw was designed for sunny southern California, not the Northeast.” — William Kaufman ’91

When he was in high school, by his own admission, he was unmotivated, doing just enough work to get by. He was smart, but he lacked focus – often didn’t feel challenged. When he took the SATs, he did exceedingly well but his grades remained mediocre. During his senior year, he realized he wanted to study engineering – his father and great-grandfather were engineers – and he found the perfect college for that: Albert Dorman Honors College. Shah and his father arranged a time to meet with Joel Bloom, then dean of the college and now president of NJIT. Bloom saw Shah’s potential, so he gave him a challenge: If Shah was to get all A’s during his last year of high school, he’d be admitted into the college. Shah took the challenge and ran with it – acing his last year: He was admitted into the Honors College. Since then, he hasn’t stopped running – accumulating honors and accolades along the way. And it was NJIT that put him on the path to professional success and personal fulfillment. He always possessed a predisposition to engineering. His grandfather was an architect and his father was a civil engineer. His father is known at NJIT for testing the concrete and steel that support buildings throughout the campus, including Laurel Hall, the dorm where Shah lived, as well as the library, where he really “lived,” or spent so much of his time. Generally, the purpose of his research is to understand and predict landfill settlement, especially rates of gas generation. His work aims to help reclaim landfills and also generate green energy from them. In his lab, he has created and simulated mini-landfills, so he can measure how the organic landfill

material settles and decomposes with time. His work is important for a combination of environmental and economic reasons. If his tests can document how a landfill decomposes, then he’ll also understand how it produces gas and how that can be used as green energy. An operator could capture the biogas and reuse it to power nearby homes, he says. The tests will also show when it’s OK to build on landfills. Being able to predict when the sites could be reused and how buildings and structures perform on the sites as they settle would allow for better reclamation. That land can then be reused in valuable ways. Several methods exist to model landfill settlement, but none consider the rate of gas production and how it decomposes with time. He wants to understand the variations caused by those changes and create a standard that can be used not just in New Jersey but worldwide. Ultimately he wants to create a process others can follow so testing can be performed for landfill settlement, gas production (green energy) and other analyses for engineering performance. “My aim,” he says, “is to reclaim the land faster and more productively.” He funds his lab himself. It’s essentially a small office with a large attached garage space. He pays for it by living at home, working full time at HMM, saving every penny he can. “Ask me next about my nonexistent social life,” he says. “It is uncommon for a grad student to have his own lab, but some of the greats all started in garages – think of Edison, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs – so I’m just keeping with tradition!”

WILLIAM KAUFMAN ’91 Responding to Cultural Currents Becoming a great architect is not simply a matter of conjuring eyecatching designs. Real success in the field requires more fundamental capacities as well, such as the ability to respond resourcefully to major cultural currents rippling through society. William Kaufman’s groundbreaking solar installation company, WattLots, is one such story of creative reinvention, born of the recession of 2008. “During the economic meltdown when New Jersey architecture firms were closing their doors seemingly by the hour and the industry faced a 65-percent unemployment rate, the only market that was growing was the solar industry,” Kaufman recounts. “I had always been interested and involved in renewable and green technology and noticed that the available product line was both industrialized and ugly – Frankenstein-like. It also occurred to me there had to be an alternative, untapped market for a different sort of solar design.” He first turned his attention to parking lots, “a vast wasteland with an industrial aspect,” accounting for a half-million acres of pavement in New Jersey alone, an area the size of Rhode Island. “We wanted to solve aesthetic issues while also increasing functionality. Much of what I saw was designed for sunny southern California, not the Northeast,” he says, noting that many of the photovoltaic panels on houses and commercial buildings in the state either didn’t face the sun adequately or were installed at angles that made for poor performance during inclement weather. He

William Kaufman

determined to both shape and tilt them differently. “Having to use the conventional 4 by 6 ft. flat panels that are made is like telling an architect he can only work with rectangular sheets of plywood,” Kaufman remarks. And in the Northeast, he adds, up to 45 days of productivity can be lost in the winter if the panels are snow-covered. Last year, he debuted a groundbreaking new system at Runnells Specialized Hospital in Berkeley Heights called the Power Arbor, which includes a parking-lot canopy composed of thin, elongated, and tilting solar panels that have the look and feel of tree branches. It automatically rotates to follow the sun. The installation saves the hospital $1.7 million in energy expenses and reduces carbon emissions by 3,300 tons over the life of the system. “The concept was biomimicry – to emulate nature, not imitate it. There is a big difference between trying to look like something and trying to act like something. For example, the Arbors do not block 100 percent of the light transmission, allowing some dappled shade effects and visual access to the sky. And when the wind blows, the installation shakes a little, and this is psychologically attractive because

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ALUMNI CIRCUIT a lu m ni achi evem en t awa rd s, it looks and feels natural – like the branches of a tree,” he says, adding, “The entire array follows the sun, like plants do, striving to absorb every possible ounce of sunlight.” While the initial cost of this new technology is relatively high, Kaufman says the price will come down as sales increase. His company is currently bidding on several projects with power utilities, which continually search for environmentally sustainable ways to meet demand and reduce long-term costs to rate payers. To add value and utility to the installations, he has included features such as Wi-Fi hotspots, built-in advertising, security cameras, high efficiency LED lights and electric vehicle recharging stations. All of the products are made in the United States. New Jersey aluminum manufacturers fabricate the superstructure, and the panels are made in Texas. Kaufman’s move into sustainable design began in earnest not at a Superfund site or even a parking lot, but at a staff meeting at WESKetch, his own architecture firm. “It was about 15 years ago and I asked my staff members to say what it was we principally did. When one of the architects said, ‘we build big houses for rich people,’ others at the table started nodding their heads in agreement. It was like a dagger through my heart,” he recounts. “I determined then and there that I wasn’t going to spend 30 years building this as a legacy. There had to be a higher purpose to what we did and so I started to think about what we could do to make a difference.” In 2000, he became the first LEED-accredited architect in the

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state. “The U.S. Green Building Council came along with the LEED program and I was involved with the people writing it, and so when it became available in New Jersey, I took the exam and passed – just one hour before one of my employees,” he recounts. “That made me first.” In addition to sustainable initiatives in its design and specification practice, the firm itself implemented a wide-ranging sustainability program, reducing consumption and energy, reusing copy paper for note taking, and starting an interoffice recycling program. “Our goal was zero waste. This also turned out to save us some money on trash removal and got the staff motivated in a competitive sort of way,” Kaufman says. “We essentially became a paperless office at a time when it was not that easy to do.” Kaufman has received numerous awards over the years, including Architect of the Year in 2001 from the American Institute of Architects. Last year, the NJIT Alumni Association gave him an achievement award for his pioneering career in green building. Kaufman says he first learned to question his profession’s status quo at his alma mater. “My architecture career began there with my very first class with Professor Jeff Hannigan. He told us to throw out everything we knew about building and design, to unlearn everything we’d absorbed from marketing and from entrenched notions about economics. None of this was about design,” he recalls. “He was right. With so much of problem-solving, it’s often a race to the quickest solution. Our

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job as architects is to do it better.” Describing himself as “very technology oriented,” Kaufman says he stays connected to NJIT. He was one of the founding members of the New Jersey School of Architecture’s Dean’s Executive Council. Years later, WattLots found a berth at the university’s Enterprise Development Center after Kaufman met Judith Sheft, the associate vice president for technology development, at a conference. “She took an interest in my new company. She and Don Sebastian (senior vice president for technology and business development) got us involved with the EDC. From there we engaged professors and students through the Capstone project which Judith also set up,” he says. “Don continues to reference our technology in his many talks and appearances and has brought us in on some other Newark urbandevelopment projects such as Military Park. We hope the university will be a showcase for the product in the near future, hosting installations that represent the campus as a sort of new ‘micro-city.’ The relationship with NJIT is invaluable.”

JAMES A. KRUCHER ’73 A Partner in the Future In his career and continuing connection to NJIT, James Krucher has been at the forefront of very significant trends. At NJIT, he earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering and then signed on in the aerospace industry with SingerKearfott. It was still early days in computing’s transformation of the workplace, but when presented with the opportunity to learn programming at the company Krucher did not hesitate. “Computers were becoming increasingly important in all

industries, and I knew that computing expertise would be valuable in many fields,” Krucher says. “I saw the future.” For Krucher, the future also meant moving into IT management at companies such as Givaudan, Wella Corporation and RCM Technologies. Krucher’s next career transition was to strike out on his own as a consultant, a move that he says has afforded him an even greater range of opportunities with companies such as AT&T, BT Americas and J&J.

Practicing batting at Yankee Stadium is among many experiences that have come James Krucher’s way though continuing connection with his fraternity.

Krucher is candid about the reason for his professional success in IT project consulting. “Quite frankly, a project can easily spin out of control and the in-house talent just isn’t up to getting it back on track. That’s why people hire me. To fix projects that are broken, to get them moving in the right direction again.”

“ You don’t have to be an engineer to be very aware of the state of disrepair. But I don’t think many people realize how this impacts the competitive position of the U.S. in the global economy.” — Richard M. Maser ’73

Along with embarking on his studies at NJIT, Krucher says that the smartest thing he did during his tenure as a student was to join a national fraternity. Joining Pi Kappa Phi offered a varied social life. Many of his friends met their future wives at NJIT fraternity parties. Krucher stayed active as an alumnus volunteer for Pi Kappa Phi at the local, regional and national levels and is glad he did. By staying active, his networking opportunities have been incredible, he says. Membership has also offered some very unique lifetime experiences. Two of these many experiences have been a private tour of the Pentagon and the opportunity to take batting practice at Yankee Stadium. Krucher has also been part of the future at NJIT. During the 10 years that saw Warren Street Village move from concept to construction, and to dedication in September 2013, Krucher served on the Greek Life Housing Committee, Gateway Planning Committee, Greek Village Task Force and Greek Housing Council. This was an effort to enhance the NJIT campus with 10 housing units that are now home for many NJIT fraternities and sororities. At present, Krucher is a member of the NJIT Alumni Council and president of the Greek Housing Council. He continues to be energetically engaged in promoting the personal benefits of membership in a fraternity or sorority, and in advocating the advantages of relocation to Warren Street Village for more NJIT Greek organizations. “The fraternities and sororities that take advantage of what Warren Street Village has to offer will be part of a really bright future at NJIT,” Krucher says. “The physical accommodations are certainly nice, but that’s not the most important

thing. Our Greek organizations have a long tradition of social and service activities, and mutual support, that really enhance the college experience. Sharing this tradition at Warren Street Village is a big plus for all Greek brothers and sisters, and for the entire NJIT community.”

RICHARD M. MASER ’73 Building From the First Floor Up Today, the engineering consulting firm started by Richard Maser in 1984 offers a range of services matched by few in the industry. The expertise that Maser, CEO and president, helps to provide along with some 450 staff colleagues in areas such as surveying, design, construction, and geotechnical and environmental services benefits clients from New Jersey to Alaska. Contributions by Maser Consulting have been key to building bridges, roads, rail lines and telecommunications facilities, and to a project at a NASA facility that employed advanced laser surveying technology. Maser says that growing up in Newark with an interest in construction made Newark College of Engineering a natural choice for continuing his education after high school as a civil engineering major. The prospect of obtaining a high-quality education at a very reasonable price also was a very appealing combination, he adds. Degree in hand, Maser spent several years working for others before he decided to take a personal entrepreneurial step. “I wanted to be independent, to control my own destiny,” he says of a decision that has not been without major challenges over the years. Maser recounts starting his practice by renting the first floor of a

Richard Maser

house in Marlboro, New Jersey, and then the second floor before business warranted moving to larger quarters in Matawan. Consistently recognized as one of the top firms in the field by publications such as Engineering News-Record, Maser Consulting is now headquartered in Red Bank, with 16 offices nationwide. For Maser, there has been a great deal of satisfaction in building a firm that has successfully weathered cyclical changes in the economy which have adversely affected other companies in the industry. He attributes Maser Consulting’s fiscal health to its judicious expansion of services and geographic presence, and to a mix of clients in the public and private sectors. “We were rock stars through the first downturn we experienced in the late 1980s because of our corporate approach,” he reflects with a touch of metaphorical color. “We were hiring when everyone else in our business was cutting staff. We were expanding when others were contracting.” While he emphasizes that no one can know what the future will bring, Maser is proud of the reputation

for client satisfaction that his firm enjoys. When asked about a project especially representative of the expertise that has built this reputation, he cites Maser Consulting’s role at Luxury Point in Sayreville, New Jersey. This entails massive redevelopment of a 440-acre brownfield site formerly the location of a National Lead plant that manufactured pigments for paint. The $1.2 billion project along the Raritan Bay and Garden State Parkway calls for a new Parkway ramp and eight million square feet of commercial and residential space, including 2,000 housing units and several hotels. “With the exception of environmental cleanup, we’re closely involved with every phase of the work,” Maser says. “It’s a solid example of our multidisciplinary capabilities.” In contrast to this addition to New Jersey’s economy, Maser is less positive about the overall state of the nation’s infrastructure. “You don’t have to be an engineer to be very aware of the state of disrepair. But I don’t think many people realize how this impacts the competitive position of the U.S. in the global economy. We’re not funding repairs and upgrades for all aspects of our infrastructure at anywhere near the level necessary to remain competitive.” It will be up to young men and women now studying at NJIT, where Maser serves on the Board of Overseers, to join those already in the workplace who are aware of this pressing national need, and who are working for constructive change. To succeed in this effort, or on any career path, he advocates integrating internships and co-op positions with the classroom experience, and acquiring what he terms “soft skills” in addition to specific professional knowledge.

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ALUMNI CIRCUIT a lu m ni achi evem en t awa rd s, Particularly important in our era of increasingly digital interaction, he says, is the ability to share ideas effectively face to face, without electronic intervention.

GEORGE R. OLSON ’77 Seeing Things Come Together George Olson says that he decided to major in industrial engineering at NJIT because he “likes to see things come together.” Today, Olson can look back on a career of some three decades during which he worked to bring important elements together for technical progress, for the benefit of the people he motivated as a manager, and for the defense of the nation. In addition to his engineering studies, Olson engaged with the NJIT community as editor of The Vector during his junior year and class vice-president in his senior year. Olson’s foray into journalism was encouraged by the legendary English instructor Herman “Doc” Estrin, who spotted his talent during a required composition course and urged him to write for the student newspaper. Sharpening his oral and written communication skills would be invaluable in later years, Olson says. “You may have the greatest ideas in the world, but if you can’t share them effectively with other people those ideas will never become reality.” He published his first book in November 2012, titled Never Give Up: Teen Orphan Overcomes the Odds. It chronicles his trials and tribulations as an orphaned 15-year-old. Olson was also adept on the baseball diamond, very adept. He came to NJIT having played

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baseball during his last two years of high school. As a Highlander, he pitched the team to three conference championships, finishing his collegiate career with a 29-9 record, an ERA of 1.43, and AllState honors his junior and senior years. In 1986, he became the first baseball player to be inducted into the NJIT Athletic Hall of Fame. Making a commitment that would eventually take him to an intercontinental-missile base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Olson also completed the Air Force ROTC program at NJIT and was commissioned a second lieutenant upon graduation. When he reported for active duty, he served as a missile launch officer. He was a member of a crew who worked deep underground with responsibility for ten Minuteman missiles, knowing that they could receive the order to retaliate in kind for a nuclear strike on the U.S. Olson says that it was a very sobering and maturing experience to be entrusted with such responsibility as a young man in his early 20s. After four years in the Air Force, Olson joined IBM as an industrial engineer, earning promotion to a managerial position within a year.

George and Joanne Olson

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Over the next 31 years, promotions brought increasing programmanagement responsibilities at IBM and, after the sale of IBM’s federal government business unit, with Loral Corporation and Lockheed Martin. Throughout his corporate career, Olson helped to strengthen the nation’s defense by working to develop leading-edge training and weapons systems, especially for the Navy. One program, which he directed several years before retiring, is particularly reflective of the breadth of his responsibility for technical management, as well as reflective of what he says has been both the greatest challenge and the most satisfying aspect of his career. In 2005, as site director, Olson took on the task of managing the Navy’s Trident ballistic-missile program at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The submarine-launched, multiple-warhead Trident is a cornerstone of U.S. nuclear deterrence. As Olson recounts, he had more than 400 direct reports in a program dedicated to all of the weapon’s operational support systems. It was, he says, a situation that presented significant morale issues, in part due to the geographical separation of previous management and uncertainty about the relocation of various positions. Cooperatively, Olson brought the program back on track in terms of production and morale, and in the process achieved savings of $38 million. The turnaround also is an example of what Olson cites as the particularly significant challenge that every manager faces – responsibility for the performance of the people who report to you. At the same time, it’s a responsibility that offers the

potential of great satisfaction. “In the end, to be successful, you have to be flexible, to really try to understand the diverse needs and abilities of the people who report to you,” Olson says. “To be sure, you have to stay focused on your organization’s goals, but accomplishing that requires doing what you can to support and encourage people to do their best with their many different talents. It’s a challenge that I really enjoyed.”

JAMES REDEKER ’77, ’80 A Moving Career As Transportation Commissioner for the State of Connecticut, responsible for some of the oldest and most traveled highways, bridges and rail lines in the country, James Redeker ’77, M.S. ’80 (civil engineering) is not so much managing his vital piece of the Northeast transportation network as rethinking and reinventing it. A longtime executive for New Jersey Transit with a knack for troubleshooting, Redeker was tapped for the position three years ago as budget storms swept the country: bridges and roads had reached a critical point of disrepair as federal dollars to renovate them were falling sharply. With news reports at the time describing him as the 10th person to lead the department in as many years, he set an ambitious course, vowing to not only update the state’s aging infrastructure, but to modernize its management practices as well. “The federal Highway Trust Fund has dried up and special earmarks for major transportation projects are a thing of the past. But it would be irresponsible for elected officials responsible for our federal transportation assets to go

“ We’re trying to address next-generation bridge and highway needs with new construction innovation and management technology.” — James Redeker ’77, ’80

home and say, ‘we’ll let our bridges fall down,’ ”he asserts. “And Connecticut is leading by example with significant increases in state funding for highways, bridges, rail and bus systems.” Indeed, a recent bridge replacement on I-84 in Southington illustrates his can-do approach. In a first-of-its-kind project in the state, construction crews both demolished and replaced two highway bridges over one busy June weekend. They were able to pull off the stunning feat by assembling the new bridges next to the highway and setting them into place with what is known as a self-propelled modular transport system that lifted and moved two 300-ton new bridges into place. Traditional methods would have forced the shutdown of different portions of I-84 while sections of the bridge were constructed – and taken as long as two years to complete. In fact, the entire demolition and replacement project took just 56 hours with no delays for travelers across the region. “We told New England to take Saturday off, to stay home and have a picnic,” the low-key Redeker joked shortly after, clearly relieved – and pleased – that the project had not only succeeded, but beat its own schedule by six hours. On a more serious note, he says “We’re trying to address next-generation bridge and highway needs with new construction innovation and management technology. In the end, it’s not just about saving money, which is critical, but about shaving off years of constructionrelated delays for our customers – the people traveling in and through the State of Connecticut.” While several large and complex projects await, including the $460

James Redeker, Connecticut Transportation Commissioner, at the site of one of the stations in the new CTfastrak bus rapid transit system that will serve travelers in central Connecticut.

million replacement of a 118-yearold swing bridge in Norwalk used by 275 trains a day, these sorts of major repairs comprise a fraction of his job. His department, with a $2.5 billion budget and a staff of 3,200, also manages Connecticut’s ports, highways, railroads, buses, ferries, and bicycle and pedestrian pathways. Initially hired in 2008 to lead the agency’s Bureau of Public Transportation, one of his primary tasks is to reduce congestion on highways and bridges by expanding the state’s mass transit system. CTtransit, the state-owned bus service, and the New Haven Line, the state-owned commuter rail service, now each carry more than 35 million passengers a year. The bureau also oversees Shore Line East, the commuter rail service between New Haven and New London, and coordinates ridesharing programs for Connecticut employers. “Here, too, our focus is on our customers’ needs and the impact of our decisions,” he says, adding that to better assess them, the department has engaged Connecticut citizens directly in charting the

state’s transportation future. Last year, the DOT launched its TransformCT initiative to solicit information and opinions on the state’s long-term infrastructure needs from thousands of residents, businesses and other stakeholders. Some of the projects the agency is mulling include new high-speed rail corridors, more highway interchanges, new rail line branches, more dedicated bus rapid transit systems like CTfastrak, improving highway speeds with methods like congestion pricing, and private car-sharing services like Zipcar. The agency expects to have feedback and recommendations prepared by early 2015. “This is our first-ever strategic plan and it will only work if businesses and citizens trust the DOT,” Redeker says, noting “Transportation departments can be insular organizations. We’re determined, however, to be open-minded and transparent at both the local and political levels and we’re ramping up communications. We’re also marketing our accomplishments. We put the bridge replacement on YouTube,

for example. We want people to get excited about innovation.” Redeker says he arrived in Connecticut having learned important lessons from NJ Transit, where his many roles included responsibility for strategic planning, customer service and technology. He also managed the ADA (American Disabilities Act) paratransit system, which gives customers with disabilities a specialized service providing essential mobility not afforded by traditional transit services. The fifth person hired by NJ Transit after it was created in 1979, he was the vice president of technology when he left 30 years later. “I was there from the beginning, helping to build the organization. I was hired fresh out of college, and I learned as I went,” he says. “It gave me an appreciation for operations at all levels, from strategic planning to dealing with the public in our open meetings.” Redeker has also spent time passing on his wisdom to new generations of transportation engineers as an adjunct faculty member at his alma mater. He got a taste of the classroom by teaching computer programming during the NJIT summer programs for high school students, and found the exchange of knowledge and experience to be completely rewarding. “I just tried to connect transportation theory to my everyday experiences,” he says, “with the goal of conveying my love for public service and for the impact that a single person can have on millions of people every day through a career in transportation.” n

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CLASS NOTES

“ I must give well-deserved kudos to Paula Harris, senior associate director of alumni relations, who has the responsibility of organizing the reunions.”

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.l.maskevich@njit.edu

First, the latest news from Mal – I’ve enjoyed attending the annual alumni reunions because I see and chat with alumni whom I have not seen since they graduated. We have a lot of fun reminiscing about the “good old days.” After the 2014 Alumni Weekend, I gave pause to realize the hard work that has been put into bringing about these events. So before I write about some of the alumni at the most recent gathering, I must give welldeserved kudos to Paula Harris, senior associate director of alumni relations, who has the responsibility of organizing the reunions. Working with alumni volunteers, Paula has performed her magic for the last eight years and is already starting on the 2015 reunion. She also works with the Young Alumni groups, and with the Washington D.C. Metro and Metro New York Alumni Clubs. I won’t bore you with all the details involved, but having been personally involved in organizing reunions on a much smaller scale, I can say the work is tedious and time-consuming. Of course, it can be said that this is her “job.” But while this is true, it is what she does beyond the normal scope of her “job” that makes her so special. Skip Wilkins ’64, a volunteer for the recent reunion, said “There were many changes right up to the last day that Paula did with humor 28

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and warmth that made it fun. Even though we did not meet in person until that weekend, I consider her a friend.” Paul Dreyer ’64, another reunion volunteer, wrote “She was always very pleasant and accommodating even when we tried to rattle her. She was a pleasure to work with and the result was a successful reunion.” Leona Balkenende Seazholtz ’62, chairperson of her 50th-year

class reunion, says “Paula was an enormous help providing information to contact classmates, helping to arrange meetings and phone conferences, and replying to many emails, even late-night ones, and sifting through thousands of photos to send to alumni as mementos of the reunion. She also appeared at the gala looking stunning. NJIT is well-served by her efforts.” Chet Bracuto ’75, co-chair of the Washington, D.C. Metro Club writes “Paula is a wonderful lady who represents NJIT in the best manner and we all enjoy the laughs when she is around us. I consider her a friend.” Diane and I sat with new Class of 1964 Golden Highlanders from Sigma Pi and their wives at the attendance-record-breaking 2014 Alumni Weekend. Peter Abruzzese, Ben Auletta, Don Burtis, Mike Carolan, Paul Dreyer, Jim Esposito, Jack

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Reunited at Alumni Weekend 2014 (left to right): Don Burtis, Paul Dreyer, Frank Sincaglia, Jim Espositio (in chair), moi, Paul Palmarozza, Skip Wilkins and Mike Carolan.

Glaser, Frank Sincaglia, Rich Tower and Skip Wilkins enjoyed

the weekend festivities. The group also included Phil Magaletta, a good friend of some of the Sigma Pi brothers. Paul Dreyer and Skip Wilkins have maintained a close relationship, first as teammates on the varsity basketball team and continuing with their active interest in the NJIT basketball program and alumni golf outings. They and their wives have also traveled together to South Africa and planned to travel to Turkey in September. Skip was starting point guard for the NCE varsity basketball team for four years. In his senior year, he was co-captain with Paul, made First Team All-New Jersey State and received the NCE Outstanding Senior Athlete Award. Skip earned an MBA as a full-time graduate student at the University of Maryland in 1967. His professional career includes being vice president of sales and marketing at Cardex Systems, vice president of employer services at ADP, and computer services manager at RCA. Skip and his wife, Camille, live in Andover, Massachusetts. Prior to beginning his career, Paul joined the Peace Corps along

with Mike Carolan. Although both were assigned to community development in Chile, they were 2,400 miles apart. Paul was in Iquiqui, a desert environment in the north, and Mike was in Concepcion in the south, where it was cold and rainy. At the end of their two-year assignment, Paul and Mike traveled home together with stops in Santiago, Chile; Mendoza and Buenos Aires in Argentina; and Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Paul earned a master’s in civil engineering at North Carolina State University in 1969 and is a Professional Engineer licensed in New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. He has been an environmental engineer for more than 40 years, experienced in planning and implementing water-resource projects in the United States, Latin America, the Pacific Rim, Central Asia, the South Caucasus and the Middle East. Paul was responsible for implementing a USAID environmental policy and technology project in the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. He was responsible for developing and implementing environmental activities for a USAID regional

water-management program in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the South Caucasus. Paul’s work as manager of the Aral Sea Project, a $24 million USAID special initiative in the former Soviet Union received critical acclaim from Patricia Buckles, USAID mission director. Reflective of Paul’s reputation, Buckles wrote that while she understood the reason he was being transferred by the consulting firm CH2M to China to head a World Bank Project, she wanted to express appreciation for his leadership in implementing the Aral Sea Project over a challenging three years. Paul has served as chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the American Water Works Association and as a member of the first Board of Directors of Water for the People, an international humanitarian organization focused on safe drinking water and improved sanitation currently operating in more than a dozen countries. Paul and his wife, Marilyn, live in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Mike earned an MBA from Boston University in 1971 and a certificate in environmental engineering in 1972 from Michigan Technological University. He worked for the New York City Transit Authority, Dow Chemical, Getty Oil, Air Products, DTE Energy and Zapco Development before forming a consulting company with several partners. Mike developed and managed the protocol for the first major international carbon-credit transaction in the U.S. In the late 1990s, when the U.S. was considering a “cap and trade” program to contain greenhouse gases (methane and carbon dioxide), Ontario Power Generation in Canada was setting up a trial program to demonstrate

how it could work. Under the contract that Mike’s company had, Ontario Power would receive “carbon credits” based on projects in the U.S. that captured greenhouse gases emitted by landfills and converted them into energy. The potential greenhouse effect of combined carbon dioxide and methane is some 25 percent greater than carbon dioxide alone. But capturing these gases in the U.S. and “trading” the offsets could compensate for emissions at other locations, such as coal-fueled generating stations operated by Ontario Power. Mike helped to define the protocol for a U.S. landfill gas-control project that qualified for this exchange, with special focus on measuring the offsets. Today, Mike and his wife, Tess, live in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Frank Sincaglia earned an MBA from New York University in 1972. While working for General Electric, he negotiated the first GE license agreement with the USSR for technology to manufacture high-pressure sodium lamps used primarily in street lighting. Frank transferred to Brussels, Belgium, to join GE’s European HQ in the late 70s. From 1984-87 he was vice president for sales and marketing at Cyberex, a company that manufactured uninterruptible power systems for data centers and other critical facilities. He held the same position from 1988-96 for Adalet-PLM, which manufactured explosion-proof electrical enclosures and highvoltage products. In 1997, Frank was U.S. director of sales for Intellexis, a company based in the United Kingdom that sold and licensed computer-based training software designed to improve understanding of finance management in business. He held that position until 2004 when he

moved to Fire Safety Solutions, where he served as a fire-protection specialist, designing sprinkler and alarm systems. Frank lives in Bluffton, South Carolina, with his wife, Cathleen. Sometimes you locate a “missing” alumnus in unusual ways, and this is how I found Manuel (Manny) Garrido ’65, an NCE soccer goalie. In communicating with retired Brigadier General Tom Taverney, who played JV basketball at NCE before transferring to the U.S. Air Force Academy, I asked Tom if he would be able to locate Manny, who had been in NCE’s AFROTC detachment and commissioned an Air Force officer upon graduation. Tom responded by attaching a publication produced for the 1964 Commissioning Ceremony that showed Manny as the deputy corps commander and Tom the outstanding freshman cadet. He also had located Manuel’s current address, which I used to contact him, and the rest of the story follows. Manny came to NJIT from Barringer High School in Newark, where he made All-State in soccer and was the school’s outstanding athlete in his senior year. At NJIT, he played varsity soccer and baseball for four years and was the AFROTC detachment’s distinguished graduate. He spent his 28-year Air Force career primarily in F-4 and F-16 flying operations. As a flying instructor, Manny trained American, German and Iranian fighter pilots. He earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses, 13 Air Medals and the Bronze Star. After retiring as a colonel in 1993, he was one of the founding members of Battlespace, Inc., a company dedicated to being a center of excellence for products and services related to unmanned aerial vehicles and systems. Manny

was vice president for advanced systems, working on the joint operations concept for the Medium Altitude Endurance (Predator) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and UAV tactical-control system programs. He supported the U.S. Joint Forces Command of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and interacted daily with government and civilian UAV program officials. Manny retired in 2012 and lives with his wife, Michelle, in Chantilly, Virginia. Space limitations in this edition prevented me from writing about all of the alumni in the Sigma Pi contingent, but I will get to the others in my next column. Keep the news coming to mjs@njit.edu.

1967 Harvey Bernstein (Civil Eng.), vice president, industry insights and alliances at McGraw Hill Construction, has been elected to the National Academy of Construction. Bernstein’s election honors his leadership in engineering and construction research, which has fostered industry innovation, sustainability and global best practices.

1974 James Schak (Chemical Eng.) has been named product manager of fluid-bed processing equipment for Kason Corp. He will oversee expansion and technical support of the company’s line of Vibro-Bed circular vibratory fluid-bed dryers and coolers. William Siwek (Electrical

Eng.) has received the International Award of Merit from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The award, which includes the accompanying

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CLASS NOTES Dean Moshe Kam and Vikram Singh

title of ASTM Fellow, is the highest organizational recognition for individual contributions to standards activities.

1975 Honorio J. Padrón (Electrical

Eng.) is a partner at ScottMadden, Inc., a general management consulting firm. Padrón has more than 35 years of experience in information-technology shared services, operations and program management, business transformation, outsourcing and in-sourcing, and customer-experience design for Fortune 500 companies. Stephen E. Pirnat (Electri-

cal Eng.) has been appointed to the board of directors of AZZ Incorporated, a global provider of electrical products and engineering services. He currently serves as the managing director, Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Quest Integrity Group of Team, Inc.

1985 S. Andrew Kamilaris, PE, PP

(Civil Eng.) has received a promotion to vice president in the Bloomfield, New Jersey, office of Dewberry, a professional services firm. Kamilaris has more than 34 years of diversified engineering experience that includes numerous bridge-engineering and projectmanagement assignments.

1986 Jeffrey A. Beck (Mechanical

Eng.) is leading Presstek as president and CEO, focusing on launching print-system solutions that are environmentally responsible and engineered to streamline print-production processes. Prior to joining Presstek, Beck served as chief operating officer for iRobot Corporation and earlier as president of the 30

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Home Robots Division. A member of the Newark College of Engineering Advisory Board, he also serves on the boards of directors of Sun Edison Semiconductor and Fiber Optic Components. Myron Petruch (Chemical Eng.), president of Sun Chemical Performance Pigments, is a recipient of the 2014 Industry Achievement Award from the American Coatings Association (ACA). Presented bi-annually, the award honors an individual or group demonstrating exceptional achievement through support of a particular ACA project that has been completed successfully. Petruch was selected for the award because of his leadership on the PaintPAC Steering Committee and contributions to the ACA’s advocacy strategy.

1993 Mario Iannelli, PE (Civil Eng.), M.S. 2001 (Civil Eng.) has been named an associate in the Parsippany, New Jersey, office of Dewberry. He is applying over two decades of experience to site-development projects at the professional services firm.

1994 Stephen Bersey (Electrical Eng.)

is on a recently formed analytical team at Burke and Quick Partners, LLC, an independent agency-only execution and research broker. Joining the firm as a senior research analyst, he brings experience gained over more than a decade in the technology industry as a member of technical staff at Bellcore and as a design engineer at Allied Signal Aerospace.

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1995 Andrew Binosa (Architecture) is

now an inspector at Georgia-based Champia Real Esate Inspections. He recently added certification by the American Society of Home Inspectors to nearly two decades of experience in commercial and residential architecture.

1996 Dermot McLeer (Mechanical Eng.) has been promoted to vice president of manufacturing at Falcon Safety Products. He joined Falcon in 2002 and was named director of operational services in 2008, with responsibility for purchasing, warehousing and engineering.

1998 Angelo Vecchio (Electrical Eng.), who has been with the consulting firm Syska Hennessy Group, Inc. for 16 years, is serving as the firm’s local information and communication technology practice area leader in Charlotte, North Carolina. Vecchio has been involved with more than 100 projects during his career at Syska Hennessy while based in their New York Office. He is now spearheading the expansion of the firm’s technology-sector presence in the Carolinas and helping to support activities in the Southeast.

1999 Hanifa Johnson (Civil Eng.), a senior project engineer at Maser Consulting in Red Bank, New Jersey, is also the “local champion” in Newark for Engineering Better Readers (EBR). A national program initiated in Maryland by the Engineers’ Leadership Foundation, EBR engages industry firms and their employees to take

GRAD GRANT PRESENTATION Vikram Singh ’01, a chemical

engineering graduate and member of ExxonMobil’s College Recruitment Team for NJIT, returned to campus recently to present Newark College of Engineering Dean Moshe Kam with the grant that ExxonMobil provides annually for the college. The funding is designated for support of educational programs within NCE’s Otto H. York Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering, John A. Reif, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Helen and John C. Hartmann Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering.

volunteer leadership roles in local communities to motivate students in low-performing schools to improve their reading skills and to read more.

2001 Philip Bussey (Information

Systems) has been promoted to captain with the West Orange, New Jersey, Fire Department. He began his firefighting career as a volunteer in the Borough of Kinnelon and became an EMT in 1995, and was hired as a firefighter by the West Orange department in 2005.

2005 Lenah Elaiwat (Information Technology) is the controller for APF properties, a real estate investment firm with a commercial portfolio of two million square feet valued at more than $800 million. A CPA, she is responsible for

ON DECK AND UNDER WAY

PHOTO: JACK WAGNER ’74

NJIT grads and their guests enjoyed an August sunset sail around Manhattan at the invitation of the Alumni Club of Metro New York aboard the Clipper City, the only tall ship berthed in Manhattan.

oversight of accounting operations and financial reporting. Frederick C. Zerilli M.S. (Management) has joined the growing marketing department at AFR/ eLEND. With 14 years of mortgage-marketing experience, he brings expertise in e-commerce, information technology and digital marketing to AFR/eLEND.

2008 Tomas Gregorio EMBA (Mgmt.

of Technology) has joined the New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII), an NJIT Corporation, as senior executive director of Healthcare Systems Innovation, with overall managerial responsibility for program development and execution. He brings a diverse background to the position, having served in various roles as a senior executive in regional hospital systems as well as with allied consulting and software organizations.

2013 Hanaa A. Hamdi Ph.D. (Urban Systems), an assistant professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, has been named the commissioner of health for the City of Newark.

NATALE NAMED TO NATIONAL ACADEMY OF CONSTRUCTION Patrick J. Natale, PE ’70 (Civil Eng.), M.S. ’75 (Eng.

Mgmt.), executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), has been elected to the National Academy of Construction (NAC). The honor has been accorded for Natale’s pioneering leadership of ASCE as well as the movement he launched to promote public understanding of the engineering profession. He has also been instrumental in helping to attract young women to engineering through a project funded by the National Science Foundation. More than 250 industry leaders were considered for the NAC’s rigorous nomination and election process.

IN MEMORIAM The NJIT community sadly notes the deaths of the following alumni: Sol Goldberg ’47 Charles Becht III ’49, ’53 Daniel L. Goldberg ’49, ’51 William Francis Heimbuch ’50 Robert J. Gilman ’51 Frank P. Valenziano ’52 John Winnicki ’54 Martin R. Carbone ’56 Louisa Frederika Davis ’56, ’61 David Conrad Pool ’56 Nicholas J. Cifelli ’58 John Joseph Golembeski ’58 Thomas J. Heuston ’58

Natale has served as ASCE executive director since 2002. During his tenure, he has engaged with engineering organizations globally, traveling to more than 40 countries on behalf of the society. He also provided compelling leadership during the release of ASCE’s 2005, 2009 and 2013 Report Cards for America’s Infrastructure, which provide a comprehensive assessment of the nation’s major infrastructure sectors. Prior to joining ASCE, Natale held various positions with the National Society of Professional Engineers, culminating with his appointment as executive director in 1999.

Michael Disko, Sr. ’59, ’62 Morris Perugini ’59 Jacqueline Kane ’60 James C. Johnson ’61 John L. Samios ’63 Edward A. Taratko, Jr. ’63, ’66 Edward Matthew Joffe ’68 Robert W. Kaminsky ’69 David L. Scull ’69 William M. Fraser ’74 Edward David Maceiko ’78, ’81 Joseph N. Caiola ’80, ’84 Bruce Carbrey ’80 Jeffrey Lawrence Brown ’87 Joseph Arcoleo ’92 Barbara Forrester ’93 Bryan J. Shaw ’06

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ALUMNI CALENDAR SAVE THE DATE!

CELEBRATION 2014 Friday, November 14 Pleasantdale Chateau West Orange, New Jersey NJIT’s annual festive evening in support of endowed scholarships for students, and honoring important friends of the university and accomplished alumni. Entertainment by Bernadette Peters, music director Marvin Laird, will be a highlight of the evening. A lucky winner also could take home as much as $25,000 from the 50/50 raffle drawing for which just 500 tickets will be sold at $100 each. The winner does not have to be present. For more information about Celebration, including the purchase of raffle tickets, contact: Jacquie Rhodes 973-596-3407 or rhodes@njit.edu Also visit njit.edu/celebration

ALUMNI WEEKEND 2015 Friday, May 15 – Sunday, May 17 Alumni Weekend has activities that will appeal to every NJIT grad. Come back to campus for Five-Year Anniversary reunions as well as non-anniversary class, college, department and fraternity/sorority events. Reconnect with NJIT and fellow alumni over a weekend featuring receptions, dinners, college and department presentations, exhibits, and the annual presentation of Alumni Achievement Awards by the Alumni Association.

For the most current information about Alumni Association activities, visit njit.edu/alumni Join us on Facebook and LinkedIn too. Go to njit.edu/ alumni/community

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CORPORATE CLUBS

REGIONAL CLUBS

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

NJIT Regional Clubs are planning events across the country. For more information:

njit.edu/alumni/clubs

YOUNG ALUMNI CLUB The Young Alumni Club organizes social, networking, and educational events for alumni and their families. For more information: njit.edu/alumni/clubs

AFTER BUT NOT OVER The evening After Party on Saturday, May 17 was one of the many highlights of Alumni Weekend 2014. Alumni, family and friends will be returning to campus again to enjoy this informal gathering and the other events scheduled for Alumni Weekend 2015, May 15–17.

AT THE EDGE CAPTURING C. ELEGANS IN GLOWING REALITY AND ART Familiarly known to Assistant Professor of Biology Gal Haspel as C. elegans, two images of the minute worm Caenorhabditis elegans comprised the cover of the June 2014 issue of BioScience, which included the article coauthored by Haspel titled “Neurobiology of Caenorhabditis elegans Locomotion: Where Do We Stand?” One millimeter long at most, this tiny nematode is hugely important for increasing biological knowledge that could help humans recover from spinal cord injuries and other neurological damage.

C. elegans is so important because it is the only creature whose neurons – all 302 – have been precisely mapped and labeled. This is basic to the neuro-physiological investigation that Haspel is conducting with a substantial grant from the New Jersey Commission on Spinal Cord Research. The green fluorescent image provided for BioScience is a scan captured during an undergraduate course Haspel teaches, Cell Biology and Imaging, visualizing inhibitory motoneurons along the ventral cord. Haspel also created the imaginative image above interpreting the essence of his research. “After all, we’re working to find out how key biological components fit together,” he says, “how nature’s gears mesh so that C. elegans can move.” biology.njit.edu

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New Jersey Institute of Technology University Heights Newark, NJ 07102-1982 njit.edu

THE EDGE IN KNOWLEDGE

THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF NJIT–

YOU’RE INCLUDED!

When you received your NJIT diploma, whatever the year, you became a member of the Alumni Association of NJIT. You joined a welcoming, supportive community that invites active, lifelong participation. Today, it’s even a community that spans continents, with a regional chapter in China. Continue to connect with your Alumni Association for news of local, regional and national networking events that will put you in touch with alumni in your profession. And there’s a growing schedule of social events for you and your family to enjoy throughout the year.

Keep in contact with your Alumni Association to benefit from mentoring by graduates who have achieved distinction in as many fields as there are NJIT majors, or to be a mentor yourself for other alumni or current students.

But however you participate, actively connect with your Alumni Association to join the men and women of all class years who have benefited from an exceptional educational experience and today share the invaluable bond of being NJIT alumni.

Stay in touch with your Alumni Association to keep abreast of NJIT continuing-education opportunities for professional advancement, and to learn about the many degree programs of potential interest to family members embarking on their own college studies.

Connect with your alumni community: njit.edu/alumni Facebook and LinkedIn: njit.edu/alumni/community Or call: 973-596-3441

YOU’ R E IN CL UDE D !