These cybersecurity professionals are responsible for identifying, mapping and securing all external digital assets an organization owns or is connected to. This includes servers, domains, cloud assets and any other digital points that could be exploited by cyber criminals. Their role involves continuously monitoring these assets for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations or other potential security risks and implementing measures to mitigate these risks. They also work to  by eliminating unnecessary access points and ensuring that all remaining ones are properly secured.

In this exclusive and informative Q&A, spoke with , lead technologist, attack surface management for . Lipala is an accomplished cybersecurity professional with over five years of experience in the manufacturing and consulting industries, with a focus on vulnerability management, patch management and comprehensive attack surface management.

Jacqueline was so enthusiastic regarding her work with an RNA virus in my lab at �鶹��ý����. It is so exciting that this beginning led her to be a part of a team that is making such a significant contribution to self-replicating RNA technology.

Dr. Claudio M. Fernandez, our 2022 Inductee into the Weehawken Academic Hall of Fame, was born in Lima, Peru on October 21, 1982. He immigrated to the United States in August 1996 with his mother. After growing up speaking only Spanish, Dr. Fernandez started his freshman year at Weehawken High School. Since he lived with his mother and stepfather who worked long hours every day, he spent most of his day in the school.

Dr. Fernandez fondly remembers the support and dedication of the people he met while at Weehawken High School. His English as a second language teachers, Mrs. April Morris and Mrs. Josephine Celia, spent countless hours after school helping him learn English. Mr. Tom Russo sparked his interest in science. Ms. Magaly Rodriguez and Mrs. Judith Hechavarria-Matos were amazing teachers who always gave him advice and helped him overcome the challenges of being a teenager in a new country. Mrs. Carol Maish went above and beyond to help him succeed in his career, helping him find scholarships and with his college search. Dr. Fernandez says that his experience at Weehawken High School shaped him into the man he is today. He says that Weehawken teachers saw the fire in his eyes and helped him achieve his great goals.

Throughout high school, Dr. Fernandez was always interested in medicine and teaching. At one point, he was torn between going to medical school or becoming a university professor. After graduating from Weehawken High School in 2000, Dr. Fernandez went on to earn both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from �鶹��ý����. While he was in college, the World Trade Center was attacked. Dr. Fernandez says this was a pivotal moment for him. He was dispatched as an EMT to New York City and received the Heroic Award for his response during his time in college. Being able to help people in the face of this disaster inspired him to pursue medicine. Dr. Fernandez went on to be an adjunct professor at �鶹��ý���� and later attended medical school at UMDNJ’s School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Dr. Fernandez has dedicated his life in the service of humanity. He currently practices emergency medicine in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and is a core faculty member for the residency Emergency Medicine Program at HCA Westside Regional Health System. He also travels to Kingston, Jamaica annually on a medical mission to help the poor. He has done this for the past ten years, and is working towards a second fellowship from the American College of Osteopathic Emergency Physicians. He is already a fellow of the American College of Osteopathic Internists, as he is double boarded in emergency medicine and internal medicine.

To our current Weehawken High School students, Dr. Fernandez would like to remind them that there is no obstacle too large to overcome.

Never take ‘no’ for an answer if you want to reach your dreams in life. Patience and dedication are your best allies.

Kindness, focus, and perseverance are three core principles that young people should always maintain.

Dr. Fernandez would like to thank his mother and his family, along with every person that he has encountered along the way, who worked tirelessly to help him reach his goals in life.

It’s not easy doing both and they have always been ready to help with anything I needed including tutoring, academic advice and finding new avenues of financial support.

She won the prestigious  for an essay she wrote about the environmental destruction she witnessed as a child in Brazil, as well as the Richard A. Bard Endowed Scholarship, the AFT Local 1904 Scholarship, and the Marie Kuhnen Scholarship.

Professional support continues into the teachers’ early years from the �鶹��ý���� Center for Student Success and Educator Excellence induction program and Noyce connections are particularly strong.

Kathryn Beatty ’17, a Noyce alumna and environmental science teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson served as Resende’s cooperating teacher during her teaching internship. “Andreia is the perfect type of teacher and perfect type of person to be a teacher because she understands the kids, because she’s from the area. I tell her, ‘you are the type of person that these kids need in the school.’”

I want to be able to encourage, to plant the seed where my students can believe in themselves and know that if they work hard enough that they can make it.

Read the full article on the University Newscenter

The research includes birds’ eye views of shoreline erosion and human efforts to replace lost sediments in berms and dunes, using pictures taken with highly precise unmanned aerial vehicles (also known as UAVs or drones) by a team in �鶹��ý����’s Coastal UAV/Drone Research Lab.

The research is led by Jesse Kolodin ’11 MS, ’21 PhD, who successfully defended his dissertation on July 9 for his doctorate in Environmental Science and Management. He is studying the interplay between the coastal mitigation projects being installed in New Jersey since Superstorm Sandy, including beach nourishment and engineered dune construction, and the economic impacts on the local coastal communities.

The work has led to a one-year fellowship with the Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics, where he will be working to educate and inform state officials on the science behind some of New Jersey’s major coastal challenges.

Kolodin is an adjunct professor of Earth and Environmental Studies. He earned his Master of Science in Geosciences from �鶹��ý���� and performed his doctoral research under the advisement of Associate Professor Jorge Lorenzo-Trueba. The research was partially funded through the National Science Foundation’s Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems Program.

Kolodin recently began projects leveraging important new survey technologies to perform hedonic regression analysis for New Jersey beachfront communities and the impact these artificial dunes have on local property values.

“One goal moving forward is to establish a user-friendly tool that local, county and state managers can use to assess their future costs, thus, planning and budgeting for better resiliency in the long term. The tool incorporates a component of erosion monitoring, using drones or UAVs,” Kolodin says.

At a coastal test site in Long Branch, New Jersey, Kolodin pilots the Earth and Environmental Studies department’s drones that fly multispectral, thermal and light detection sensors. The flights demonstrate the methodology and potential advantages of using this high-precision equipment, especially when compared to lower-resolution/higher-cost alternatives, like satellites or planes, Kolodin explains.

The Coastal UAV/Drone Research Lab is led by Lorenzo-Trueba. In addition to Kolodin, student researchers include Shane Daiek, Environmental Science and Management PhD candidate; and Shane Nichols-O’Neill, Earth and Environmental Studies graduate student.

Summer undergrad collaborators from the Computer Science Department include Jakub Pecak and Britnie Gonzalez-Moodie, who are both co-advised by Lorenzo-Trueba and Associate Computer Science Professor Aparna Varde. Professor Danlin Yu, whose research interests include Geographic Information Science, and Professor Mark Chopping, remote sensing expert, also assist.

“Some coastal homeowners – specifically beachfront homeowners – are reluctant to have these large-engineered dunes installed because they may block their views, or that their access will become restricted, or that their once private beach is now public,” Kolodin says. “Given the aggregate trends in real estate, we can discretely measure the increase in property value that the ‘whole’ town receives, which ultimately may translate into certain towns identifying the needs for a more substantial future budget to offset increasing rates of erosion due to growing rates of storm activity, a by-product of anthropogenically-induced sea-level rise and global warming.”

Kolodin will begin the Eagleton Science and Politics Fellowship this summer, joining a small and select group of PhD scientists in pursuit of bringing their scientific expertise and knowledge to the forefront of New Jersey policy.

“I find this to be an opportunistic time for myself and my research, as New Jersey is currently embarking on their ambitious Climate Change Resilience Strategy, including additional coastal projects where my background may serve the state well,” Kolodin says.

The program begins with an intensive summer training seminar focused on New Jersey politics and government, covering topics such as effective communication strategies, power structures and political processes. Throughout the year, Science Fellows participate in professional development and networking sessions organized by the Institute.

Story by Staff Writer Marilyn Joyce Lehren

Learn more about the Environmental Science and Management PhD program.

Janoff received the Jaia Syvitski Student Modeler Award for 2021 given by the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System to recognize outstanding achievement in surface modeling, with a focus on how modeling is used to address scientific and societal challenges.

Completing his doctoral program last January in Environmental Science and Management, Janoff is currently a Knauss Marine Policy Fellow, working with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation on projects that include decarbonization of the maritime transportation system (covering both domestic and transoceanic shipping), port and Coast Guard shoreside infrastructure resilience to sea level rise, Jones Act determinations on offshore wind farm construction, supply chain and maritime workforce safety issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and agency oversight of the Coast Guard, Maritime Administration, and Federal Maritime Commission. In this role, he has briefed members of Congress, drafted letters to relevant agencies, prepared hearing materials, drafted legislation, and participated in various subcommittee and committee meetings with environmental NGOs, industry groups, agency officials, member offices and House leadership.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) supported his previous research through its Dynamics of Coupled Natural-Human Systems program.

Janoff delivered a  during the annual meeting of the NSF’s scientific center Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System, and received the award on May 17 judged on the basis of ingenuity, applicability and contribution toward the advancement of geoscience modeling.

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Learn more about the Environmental Science and Management PhD program.

Read Virtual Trip to the Galapagos Islands on the Alumni website for more about the event.

These are just some of the successful �鶹��ý���� students that earned these awards this year. Read about more of them in the University News Center piece Looking Ahead to Global Experiences!

Learn more about the Environmental Science and Management PhD program.

She leads the molecular diagnostics department at LabCorp’s Raritan, New Jersey, lab, where she was able to rapidly scale up and validate an at-home collection kit that was the first authorized for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Maybe it’s because I’m a nerd who is into biology, but when I first learned about the coronavirus, I immediately thought, ‘I have a feeling a few months from now, I’m going to be testing this by the thousands.’

Read the full article in the University News Center.