NJIT's Forensic Science Initiative Celebrates First Graduates
A select group of local high school seniors have become the first graduates of NJIT的法医科学计划(FSI) after successfully completing an intensive STEM training program this year.
FSI’s inaugural class recently drew plaudits from the professional forensic science community at a 新泽西州法医科学家协会 会议, where they showcased their capstone research projects — the culmination of their work throughout the program dating back to last summer.
Launched in 2022 through a collaboration among New Jersey school districts, 和 NJIT's 文理学院 和 大学预科课程中心, the FSI program aims to provide local high schoolers with a pathway to higher education by strengthening their skills in STEM through the gateway of forensic science. The initiative also introduces participants to life on a college campus.
“FSI一直是一个令人兴奋的项目. We've worked with an outst和ing group of students from Newark 和 Orange 和 been able to provide them with unique experiences seldom available to high schoolers,” said NJIT’s Program Development 和 Forensic Science Initiative Senior Director Barbara Weller. “他们在各个方面都迎接了挑战. Through FSI I've also worked with a cohort of high school teachers. They've done such outst和ing work that we'll be able to exp和 the opportunities in NJIT forensic science to reach over 200 students this coming year.”
The initiative is already making inroads — many of FSI’s first cohort will be attending NJIT in the fall, 根据 大学法医学 项目主管大卫·费希尔.
“What impressed me the most about these students was their drive 和 intellectual curiosity,费雪说. “They really challenged themselves by taking a college-level course while in high school 和 their hard work has really paid off.”
学生展示跨法医科学领域的工作
FSI's inaugural class of thirteen students gave poster presentations at NJAFS’s annual forensic 会议 hosted at NJIT’s Agile Strategy Lab, displaying everything they’ve learned over rigorous weeks of book studies, 实验室工作, field research 和 tutoring alongside faculty 和 student mentors.
Projects reflected the incredibly diverse range of forensic science fields.
Recently graduated seniors from Newark's Barringer High School (Santiago Mosquera), South Orange's STEM Innovation Academy of the Oranges (Carla Plaza-Carro) 和 American History High School in Newark (Luis Solorzano) presented research on how analysis of metadata from drones can offer key forensic data for investigative leads.
“FSI was a great opportunity to see how I’d fit into NJIT next year, 它甚至给了我一个获得无人机执照的借口,卡罗说, an NJIT enrollee who’ll major in architecture in the fall. “We got to study this new field of forensics by flying drones around campus. 这是了解这所大学的一个有趣的方式.
“The open-source software we used let us learn how evidence can be collected in cases where a crime was committed using a drone. We could see flight videos in real time 和 pinpoint where the remote or drone was at the time of recording, 这很酷.”
与此同时, 布兰登·帕拉西奥斯, Khyasia Andrews(大学高中, Newark) 和 Breena Stephen (STEM Innovation High School of the Oranges) discussed how their “Rat-Trap” device could replicate impact bloodstain patterns to study crime scenes.
STEM Innovation Academy of the Oranges’ Alnisa Conley 和 American History High School’s Aishat Jimoh-Kuku teamed up to present a study on a new NMR-based method for more accurately quantifying the amount of caffeine in popular energy drinks. 这是他们项目的主要发现之一, the team detected at least one energy drink across six samples had double the amount of caffeine listed on the can.
Barringer High School graduates Bryan Fontanez 和 Santiago Parhuana, 和 STEM Innovation Academy of the Oranges graduate Caleb Osorio sought to develop a VR experience that enables students to practice investigative skills in a simulated crime scene environment. All three team members have been active on campus this summer preparing for their first semester at NJIT through the university’s 教育机会计划.
Weequahic High School graduates Elliot Ampofo 和 Azim Haroun presented research on pain biosensors, a relatively new area of research that aims to detect 和 measure pain signals.
“每个人对疼痛的体验都不同, so our project focused on studying how certain enzymes react in the human body environment, 哪种方法可以更好地测量疼痛. This field of research could be useful for things like determining wait times for hospital patients for instance,哈罗恩说。, 另一个新泽西理工学院的学生,他将主修 生物化学 今年秋天.
“FSI is a great way to get a head start in forensics 和 related STEM fields. 对我来说, it was really rewarding to begin getting h和s-on experience in a real lab setting as well as get a sense of what campus life is like before freshman year.”