The Albert Dorman Colloquium Series - Spring 2022

5:30pm - 7:00pm | (Virtual event - register here) 

Arriving at a Multidisciplinary Practice

Speaker: Nina Cooke John, Architect and Educator, Studio Cooke John

HCAD / ADHC Co-sponsored Colloquium; City Leadership Civic Engagement Colloquium

In the wake of social justice protests in 2020, Newark, NJ, decided to remove a statue of Christopher Columbus. Among other projects, this presentation will focus on, a new monument to abolitionist and legendary Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman designed by Studio Cooke John. The monument will be an interactive space designed to engage with the community – and a visual marker for Tubman's connections to Newark and the Garden State.

Nina is the founding principal of Studio Cooke John Architecture and Design, a multidisciplinary design studio that values placemaking as a way to transform relationships between people and the built environment. Working at the scale of the human body; individually or collectively, in the home or on the street, responding to how we use space in our everyday lives, whether in the family unit or as a community. Among many significant commissions Studio Cooke John has been selected to design the new Harriet Tubman Monument in Newark, NJ and is a part of the Elle Décor A-List class of 2021.

11:30am - 1:00pm | Virtual (WebEx) - advanced registration required 

CODED BIAS: A conversation with filmmaker Shalini Kantayya

CODED BIAS will be available to stream for free prior to the event (register here to gain access). The film is also available on Netflix. 

CODED BIAS director Shalini Kantayya joins Assistant Professor Amy Hoover (Informatics) and students to discuss the film.

Shalini Kantayya’s CODED BIAS (2020) follows MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini in her ground-breaking investigation of how algorithms repeat the unconscious prejudices of their programmers. After discovering that facial recognition technologies fail to see dark-skinned faces accurately, Buolamwini pushes for the first-ever U.S. legislation to protect against bias in the algorithms that impact us all. Exploring the shadow side of AI, CODED BIAS foregrounds the work of women who have revealed the inextricable ties between technology and civil rights.

This event is co-sponsored by NJIT’s Albert Dorman Honors College, the Murray Center for Women in Technology, the College of Science and Liberal Arts, Black History Month, and the Office of the Dean of Students.

9:00am - 2:00pm | Campus Center Ballroom A/B and Gallery (registration is closed)

President's Forum and NAI-NJIT Workshop on Global Healthcare

Medical Humanities Colloquium

Honors Scholars must register in advance (by Feb. 10), check-in for this event at the registration desk on Feb. 21 (Ballroom A/B and Gallery, Campus Center between 8:30am and 9:00am), participate in at least 1 1/2 hours of this event, and complete the follow-up ADHC survey in order to receive credit for this colloquium.

In Conjunction with President’s Forum and NJIT 2022 Research Institutes, Centers and Laboratory Showcase

We are pleased to announce the National Academy of Inventors (NAI)-NJIT Workshop on Sustainable Societies: Global Healthcare as a part of the workshop series on “Innovations to Global Solutions” focused on NJIT Research Grand Challenges: Healthcare Innovations, Sustainable Communities, and Next-Generation Computing and Cyberinfrastructure. This workshop will focus on innovative technology-driven global solutions to address the healthcare grand challenge through preventive, personalized and precision medicine. It is designed to bring together key stakeholders with an eye toward developing an integrated approach toward the problem that focuses on education, research, innovation and technology translation.

The NJIT Research Institutes, Centers and Specialized Laboratories Showcase will feature e-posters via ppt presentations on digital display monitors for more than 140 research institutes, centers and labs. The showcase will provide a unique opportunity to learn about NJIT research enterprise and faculty expertise towards developing future research collaborations.

Abstract: As the world continues to evolve with increasing population and life expectancy along with urbanization and socio-economic inequalities, the global community is now facing a critical grand challenge of quality healthcare at affordable cost. According to the data published by World Health Organization (WHO), top global causes of death, in order of total number of lives lost but not including pandemic outbreaks, are associated with three broad topics: cardiovascular (ischemic heart disease, stroke), respiratory (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory infections) and neonatal conditions.

Though the recent technological and pharmaceutical advances in healthcare have enabled tremendous improvements in diagnosis, treatment and therapeutic intervention of critical diseases, healthcare remains one of the most critical challenges in communicable and non-communicable diseases due to barriers to accessibility and continuously rising costs directly impacting the sustainability of the global society, specifically in under-resourced as well as elderly communities in both developing and developed countries.

The Point-of-Care (POC) technologies have a potential to provide global healthcare at affordable costs towards personalized, preventive and precision medicine. The potential benefits of POC technologies in providing sustainable healthcare solutions for managing communicable as well as non-communicable diseases globally are becoming increasingly evident. The POC innovations and technologies can provide essential tools in delivering effective healthcare in public health emergencies, disaster situations, and under-resourced environments.

The workshop will provide an open forum to discuss innovative global solutions to address the healthcare grand challenge through preventive, personalized and precision medicine exploring the potential contributions of Point-of-Care technologies for communicable as well as non-communicable diseases. The workshop will feature keynote talks and panel discussions by leaders from all stakeholder groups representing academic, industry, healthcare, and regulatory sectors to discuss potential pathways and collaborative synergies towards sustainable societies with affordable quality healthcare.

Panel-1 will focus on challenges associated with global healthcare for public health emergencies such as COVID-19 pandemic as well as critical non-communicable diseases. Lessons learned from the recent NIH’s successful RADx initiative in developing and accelerating the use of POC testing technologies for timely intervention and clinical management of COVID-19 pandemic will be discussed. The panel will also explore how challenges the US encounters managing patients across systems, spending limited resources effectively, and setting and meeting regulatory requirements become even more complex in global healthcare. Panel-2 will focus on technology innovation, translation, and scalability of innovative solutions to diverse environments and societies, each with unique care delivery models and opportunities. In addition, select research and development technologies in critical global healthcare applications will be explored.

11:30am - 1:00pm | Campus Center Ballroom (Registration required - register here)

The Sustainable Campus: ADHC First-Year Seminar Biodiversity Initiatives

City Leadership & Civic Engagement Colloquium

2:30pm - 4:00pm | Campus Center Atrium (Registration required - register here)

Fellowships Colloquium with Dr Lorna Ronald, Dorman Scholars, NJIT Students and Alums

Hear from current and former scholars about why and how to apply for prestigious fellowships that help you to travel internationally, gain research experience, and undertake graduate study. They will share tips about the process and how it has helped them to think through and write about their goals. You will hear about the Boren, DAAD RISE, Fulbright, Gilman, Goldwater, Humanity in Action, NSF GRFP, Udall, and Venture for America awards--and get to meet applicants and awardees in person as well as those joining from Cleveland, Houston, New York... Toronto and Taipei!

Dr Ronald will introduce Parth Agrawal, Perry Andanar, Will Andrews, Abdul Azizogli, Paul Bosin, Daniela Bushiri, Sam Carlos, Matthew Cherrey, Kiaja Jones, Akhilesh Kootala, Julia Kuzan, Sreya Sanyal, Joey Torsiello, Kaylin Wittmeyer.

11;30am - 1:00pm | GITC 1400 (Registration required - register here)

Tissue Innervation and Muscle Mimetics

Speaker: Jonathan Grasman, Assistant Professor, NJIT

Medical Humanities Colloquium

NCE / ADHC Co-sponsored Colloquium

This presentation will discuss the complexity of large scale, traumatic skeletal muscle injuries, our recent efforts in this field, and describe the need to study tissue innervation as a means to accelerate and improve regenerative outcomes. I will also discuss our ongoing strategies to recapitulate developmental cues to probe how the vascular network secretome can enhance axonal growth in a facile 3D tissue system where I demonstrate the ability to guide neural network formation utilizing secreted factors found in vascular systems. Importantly, this tissue system has been developed into a laceration-based traumatic injury model and shows promise in being able to serve as a model of neural repair from traumatic injury. Taken together, these strategies comprise a comprehensive toolbox with which to study and understand tissue innervation.

Jonathan Grasman, PhD is an assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Professor Grasman received his bachelor’s degree with high honors from the University of Pittsburgh and his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His doctoral research with Dr. George Pins focused on developing novel methods to design tunable structural and biochemical properties of fibrin microthreads in the context of skeletal muscle regeneration as an NRSA predoctoral fellow. He was subsequently an NRSA postdoctoral fellow in the biomedical engineering department at Tufts University, where he worked with Dr. David Kaplan on developing tissue systems to study the co-development of vascular and neural networks. His current research interests include tissue engineering and biomaterials development and customization, particularly focused in skeletal muscle tissues and the study of innervation and vascularization.

2:30pm - 4:00pm | NJIT Makerspace - Phase 1 (Registration required and limited to 35 participants - register here)

Make203: Intro to SLA Printing

Speaker: Justin Suriano, Makerspace Manager

NCE / ADHC Co-sponsored Colloquium

Building on Make 103, Make 203 covers stereolithographic 3D printing, a printing process that involves curing a photopolymer resin layer-by-layer. This colloquium will briefly cover design considerations for SLA printing, slicing, starting and removing prints. (Prior participation in Make103 is not required.)

Justin Suriano is the manager of the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s academic Makerspace, which opened December 2018. Prior to managing the NJIT Makerspace, Mr. Suriano could be found on the sets of major motion pictures and television shows in Los Angeles, working as a set lighting technician. He returned to school in the summer of 2014 for a bachelor’s and master's degree in mechanical engineering, completing both degrees at NJIT by December of 2020. He is now pursuing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, and his background is in additive manufacturing.

1:00pm - 2:30pm | IDS 1 (Honors building) (Registration required - register here)

The Professional Engineer: Tackling 21st Century Challenges in Technology and Infrastructure

City Leadership & Civic Engagement Colloquium

Speaker: Vatsal A. Shah, Ph.D, PE, PP, Adjunct Professor, John A. Reif Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NJIT

Honors Faculty Fellow

Theranos- Silicon Valley’s revolutionary blood testing startup; Flint, Michigan- the face of America’s aging infrastructure; and Volkwagen Auto Group- diesel technology gone bad. What do these three seemingly-different topics share in common? Engineers from all discliplines- biomedical, mechanical, and civil, for these examples, stand behind the innovations for the underlying technology and infrastructure that improve our society. Each contribution reinforces the public trust in our profession, but recent issues and loosening of regulations makes it easier to miss the line which separates a degreed graduate and a Professional Engineer.

This colloquium will discuss what it means to be an engineer in the 21st Century- from ethics, to professional licensure, and lessons learned. The colloquium will provide a preview of the Fall 2022 course to be taught by Dr. Shah in understanding the process of forensic engineering and learning through previously-documented failures. As many of the prospective students will be concurrently taking technical courses where design assumptions and judgement will be necessary, the course will be meant to help students understand the weight and importance of sound engineering judgement and the risks and consequences associated when improper standards of care, technical oversight, and miscommunication occur.

2:30pm - 4:00pm | Campus Center Atrium (Registration required - register here)

Site Literacies: Discovering Newark, New Jersey

Speaker: Jon Curley, Senior University Lecturer in Humanities and Social Sciences​, NJIT

City Leadership & Civic Engagement Colloquium

CSLA / ADHC Co-sponsored colloquium

This colloquium will discuss the pedagogy, theory, and practice of Newark Narratives, both an academic course and conceptual framework for engaging Newark on and off campus. I shall discuss my experience and that of my students in engaging with the city artistically, culturally, politically, and personally in our proactive seminar approach. The advocacy of intensive engagement and immersion into the city serves as the organizing imperative of what I have designated as 'site literacy': the reading of local environments so as to live and feel them and not just remotely and academically analyze them.

Jon Curley is a Senior Lecturer of Humanities and Social Sciences at NJIT. He is the author of the critical study Poets and Partitions: Confronting Communal Identities in Northern Ireland, the editor of Bartolomeo Vanzetti's narrative Events and Victims, and the co-editor (along with NJIT Distinguished Professor Burt Kimmelman) of Nomad Memory: The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller. Newark legend Amiri Baraka was his mentor, and Curley has published five poetry collections, most recently Remnant Halo, a long poem about the pandemic.

2:30pm - 4:00pm | NJII Agile Strategy Lab - (Located in NJIT's Central King Building (CKB)) (Registration required - register here)

Passing the Torch

Women With STEAM Colloquium

Join ADHC alumni and scholars for a roundtable networking event. 

11:30am - 1:00pm | Campus Center Atrium (Registration required - register here)

NJIT’S Hispanic and Latinx Leadership Council Present: 

CAFÉ Y CONEXIONES

Do you have what it takes to start your own business? 

Do you have an idea but not sure where to start? 

Join us for a panel discussion on: 

Friday, April 22, 2022 11:30 am to 1:00 pm 

Campus Center Atrium 

Light refreshments to be served 

Panelists: 

Luis De La Hoz: FVP Regional Director Community Lending NJ, Valley Bank, Chairman, Board of Directors, Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce 

Francisco Cortes: CEO & Chairman The Setroc Group, Inc., President & Co Founder NJ State Veterans Chamber of Commerce 

Elisa Charters: President/Co-Founder Latina Surge, NJIT Board Trustee 

Minue Yoshida: CEO & Co-Founder Yoshida Academy, Chair of Global Affairs of  the United Nations Association of NJ 

Co-sponsored by EOP and ADHC

4:00pm - 5:30pm | Campus Center Ballroom (Registration required - register here)

Speaker: Nükhet Varlık, Associate Professor, Department of History, Rutgers University - Newark

Medical Humanities Colloquium

In this present age of pandemics, it is critical to rethink how we write the history of past pandemics. With a conviction that the past helps us to understand the present and the present should help us to rethink the past, I turn to past plagues and the legacy they left behind. In this presentation, I will take stock of salient features of current pandemic narratives. In particular, I will address why we need to reconceptualize pandemics as long-term processes. I will also highlight why it is tricky to seek origin stories and how they can be misleading. In this backdrop, I will turn to the lasting legacies of past plagues and address persistent problems that are not only ubiquitous in the historical scholarship, but also staples of public opinion about pandemics, past and present.

Nükhet Varlık is a historian of the Ottoman Empire interested in disease, medicine, and public health. She is the author of Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600 (2015), editor of Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean (2017), and co-editor of Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World: Perspectives From Across the Mediterranean and Beyond (2022). Her new book project, Empire, Ecology, and Plague: Rethinking the Second Pandemic (ca.1340s–ca. 1940s), examines the 600-year-old Ottoman plague experience in a global ecological context. She is involved in the Black Death Digital Archive and contributes to multidisciplinary research projects on historical pandemics of plague.

2:30pm - 4:00pm | Webex (Registration required - register here) 

Computational Design of Elastic Deployable Architectural Structures

Speaker: Dr. Przemyslaw Musialski, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, NJIT

YWCC / ADHC Co-sponsored colloquium

The pursuit of novel structures suitable for design and engineering has been a very old topic in science and engineering. One of the ultimate goals of this race are structures that are light, cheap, and strong. An interesting class of structures that largely fulfill these requirements surprisingly seems to have contradictory properties: Under load, they leave their stable state and compensate it with buckling. In mechanical terms, they elastically move to the post-buckling regime. Usually, engineers want to avoid any buckling effects as they are regarded as structural failures. On the other hand, by adequately designing the structure's geometry, this seeming disadvantage can be of great practical use with a high level of efficiency. Especially, slender structures like rods, plates, or shells are suitable for design with such elastic bending techniques.

In this talk, I will introduce elastic geodesic grids, which are a novel type of planar–to–spatial deployable structures. They are designed to approximate designer-provided free-form surfaces and deploy from 2d to 3d elastically. Our method encodes the shape of the design surface into the planar grid layout. Such elastic structures combine physics and aesthetics, they are easy–to–deploy, easy–to–fabricate, and approximate curved shapes. They may serve purposes like free-form sub-structures, panels, sun and rain protectors, pavilions, etc.  The talk will present the design approach of such grids, challenges specific to this kind of deployable structures, and fabricated examples.

Przemyslaw Musialski is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJ, USA. His research interests are geometric modeling, geometry processing, computer graphics, and digital fabrication. He develops new algorithmic solutions that help designers create products directly on the computer, averting the need to manufacture preliminary prototypes. Before joining NJIT, he headed the Computational Fabrication group at the Center for Geometry and Computational Design (GCD) at the TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology) in Austria. He obtained the MSc degree in Media Sciences in 2007 from the Bauhaus University Weimar and the PhD degree in Computer Science in 2010 from the TU Wien. From 2007 to 2011, he was with VRVis Research Center in Vienna, and from 2011 till 2012, he was a postdoctoral scholar at the Arizona State University

7:00pm - 9:00pm | NJIT Jim Wise Theatre, Kupfrian Hall (Registration for the talk-back is required - limited seating) (Performance tickets must be purchased separately)

Theater performance & after-show Talkback: Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare 

Directed by Dr. Michael Kerley

In person, live performance. Talk-back following performance (Students should remain in the theater after curtain call; the author, director, cast, and some crew will then come to the stage to answer questions.)

Masks are Required. 

Written in 1595 or 1596.  There is a wedding planned in Athens, the problem is, the bride thinks it's all a dream thus frustrating her husband to be.  The acting troupe hired for the wedding find themselves in the forest at midsummer, rehearsing for the event that may not happen.  Fortunately, or unfortunately they get caught up in the local forest where fairies and their king and queen are in the middle of their amorous arguments.  Joined in the forest  are two couples escaping the law that demands they marry the persons they do not love.  This turns into a night of fun times as the spirits of the forest play with their visitors in a most magical way.  This is one of Shakespeare's most beloved plays.  And a great way to end the semester with love and adventure. 

11:30am - 1:00pm | GITC 1100 (Registration required - register here) 

Jump Start your Career with Consulting 

Speaker: Valentin Guerin

Consulting is a term loosely used in the Professional Services industry, but do you know what it is? This colloquium will help demystify Consulting, and will take you through the life of a consultant. Valentin Guerin will share his professional journey and shed some light on how a career in Consulting could be a great opportunity for you.

Valentin Guerin is a Client Lead with Avanade (a global consulting firm created by Accenture and Microsoft). He grew up in France and started his career in consulting after a Computer Science degree. Valentin has been with Avanade for 17 years, playing many different roles from Technology, to Operations, and even HR. In his spare time he leads a mentoring program for NJIT STEM Women, and recently joined the Martin Tuchman School of Management advisory board.

​MTSM / ADHC Co-sponsored colloquium

2:30pm - 4:00pm | (registration required - seating not guaranteed) 

NJIT Wind and String Ensemble Spring Concert