Portrait of Fauzan Amjad
A Working Record

Fauzan Amjad

AI & Defense Strategy Consultant  |  Board of Trustees @ Rutgers

  • EducationRutgers University — B.Sc. Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) & B.A. Cognitive Science (Cognitive Neuroscience); Eagleton Certificate in American Politics & Public Policy.
  • ClearanceActive Secret clearance.
  • LanguagesEnglish, Urdu, Hindi.

Abstract

This document collects the professional and scholarly record of an software engineering & AI consultant working across three domains: applied artificial intelligence, defense and public-sector modernization, and health equity. The work spans four years — building mission-critical software for federal and state government, carrying field research into policy, and representing more than sixty-seven thousand students on the governing board of a major public university.

A single question recurs across it: how technical systems can be built to serve the people least well served by the systems they replace. That question runs from a offender-management modernization to a maternal-health application, from a national-security analysis of foreign uses of artificial intelligence1 to a replatforming effort for the Navy Chaplain Corps. What follows is organized as a paper: experience and governance, built products, research and scholarship, and the interests that inform them.

§Selected Outcomes

A few results, stated plainly, with the numbers attached.

Proposition 1. Governance at scale

Represents 67,000+ students as a member of the Rutgers Board of Trustees — the university's governing body — participating in decision-making, governance, and strategic planning.

Proposition 2. System modernization

Functional analyst on a $30M offender-management modernization; requirements and process design bearing on 23,000+ incarcerated individuals and 7M+ residents.

Proposition 3. Product & venture

Built BabySafeHealth: $25,000 TechUnited Better Wellness Challenge; Clinton Global Initiative University '22 accelerator; AWS University Start-Up semi-finalist.

Proposition 4. Defense engineering

Software engineer on the Navy Chaplain Corps RMAT replatforming, supporting readiness analytics for 2,500+ chaplains; leads technical working sessions with stakeholders, including at the Pentagon.

Section One

Experience

Multiple years of engineering and analysis for government and industry clients, alongside public service on a university governing board and in the classroom.

1.1SWE Consultant — Department of the Navy, Chaplain Corps

Software Engineer · Religious Ministry Assessment Tool (RMAT) — September 2025 – Present · Defense, Security & Justice

Software engineer on the build and replatforming of the Religious Ministry Assessment Tool (RMAT), the mission system that supports Navy warfighter spiritual readiness. I lead technical working sessions with stakeholders at the Pentagon, translating operational needs into platform requirements and engineering decisions.

I designed the criteria and subcriteria framework used to evaluate replatforming options from the ground up, then led the comparative analysis across ServiceNow, Qualtrics, Power Apps, and Qlik against technical, operational, and federal cybersecurity requirements (DoD, CANES, Falcon Speed, IL4). To keep the recommendation grounded in reality, I ran SME interviews and discovery so that end-user needs and compliance standards were embedded in the design rather than bolted on. I authored the operational-availability report for the current ServiceNow RMAT and helped manage bug-resolution reporting to drive continuous usability improvement.

On the engineering side I scoped secure migration approaches and phase planning for Chaplain Corps data — backup, cleansing, and structured transition — while ensuring every candidate solution satisfied CAC authentication, Impact Level 4, and shipboard/offline operational needs across classified networks.

Key Result A transparent, criteria-driven assessment methodology now positions the Chaplain Corps for a secure, scalable, user-centered analytics solution supporting more than 2,500 chaplains.

1.2Data Scientist Consultant — Fortune 500 Pharmaceutical Company

Data Scientist — July 2025 – August 2025 · Life Sciences & Healthcare

Led a global research-and-development data synthesis surveying healthcare professionals across the United States, Italy, Germany, and Japan to measure expectations and trust in pharmaceutical digital channels. Using Python, I analyzed large-scale survey datasets and segmented results by Key Opinion Leaders, non-KOLs, and primary specialty, producing country-specific insight on comfort with branded claims, generative-AI adoption, and desired website features. The resulting report — findings plus actionable recommendations — directly informed the client's digital strategy and stakeholder-engagement approach.

1.3SWE Consultant — Federal Postal Agency

Full-Stack Software Engineer — May 2025 – July 2025 · Civil Government · Cloud Transformation

Led frontend development for an Adobe Express Add-On that lets users design and mail postcards nationwide through an integrated React/TypeScript interface — building the OAuth authentication, CSV address upload and validation, payment processing, and order-submission flows. In a three-person team I engineered the full stack with React.js, Node.js, AWS App Runner, and DynamoDB, integrating PostGrid APIs to automate printing, address verification, and fulfillment. I owned DevOps: Azure DevOps and GitHub, agile epics and acceptance criteria, and CI/CD pipelines with branch protections for production-grade deployment. The add-on integrates with the agency's Informed Delivery program to onboard new users and expand national digital reach.

1.4Product Management Consultant — State of Tennessee, Department of Correction

Functional Analyst — November 2024 – May 2025 · State Government · Strategy

Functional analyst on Tennessee's $30M Offender Management System modernization. I ran fit-gap sessions with state stakeholders and the contracted development team, authoring hundreds of user stories, acceptance criteria, and system requirements, and created 10+ end-to-end process flows in Visio — covering commissary, PREA, volunteer and religious services, judicial communications, inmate finances, and healthcare — that directly shaped software and algorithm design. Sitting at the seam between functional and technical, I contributed to VPN and infrastructure sessions and delivered the documentation, sprint inputs, and requirements traceability that kept agency needs aligned with vendor output.

Key Result Requirements and process design advancing system equity and safety for 23,000+ incarcerated individuals and 7M+ Tennessee residents.

1.5U.S. House of Representatives — Office of Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr.

Legislative & Research Intern — May 2023 – July 2023

Conducted policy research on artificial intelligence, patent policy, healthcare, vaccine accessibility, and price gouging, producing reports that informed legislative decisions and constituent engagement. Worked with the House Energy and Commerce Committee on healthcare-policy analysis — memos on pricing, vaccine distribution, and constituent concerns — and assisted with legislative drafting, communicating complex policy clearly to congressional staff, elected officials, and constituents.

1.6University Governance — Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Member, Board of Trustees — September 2023 – Present

Appointed to the Rutgers Board of Trustees to represent and advocate for 67,000+ students, participating in the decision-making, governance, and strategic planning that advance the university's academic mission.† The role follows two earlier governance appointments: Undergraduate Student Representative to the Board (2021–2023), selected by the University Senate to voice the concerns of 50,000+ undergraduates across three campuses at Board of Governors and Trustees committee meetings; and University Senator (since 2021), representing 22,000+ School of Arts and Sciences students on admissions standards, scholarship oversight, and academic policy. Member, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

1.7Teaching & Mentorship — Rutgers University

Lecturer · Teaching Assistant · Supplemental Instructor — 2021 – 2024

Teaching Assistant and Part-Time Lecturer for CS210 (Data Management for Data Science), leading weekly recitations on Python, Pandas, NumPy, CSV manipulation, regular expressions, and SQL. Designed and taught a First-Year Interest Group seminar, Exploring Health and Medicine, covering racial health disparities, holistic care, and clinical career pathways, with guest lectures on patients' religious beliefs and mental-health awareness. As a Supplemental Instructor with Rutgers ODASIS, delivered weekly instruction and mock exams in introductory chemistry for underrepresented pre-medical students.

Section Two

Selected Works

Three products built end to end. Each is presented as a short case study — the problem, the approach, and what came of it.

2.1BabySafeHealth

babysafehealth.com

React Native · Maternal & Infant Health · Venture-backed

Problem. New Jersey has among the widest racial gaps in maternal and infant mortality in the country, and the mothers most at risk are the least likely to have information, monitoring, and trusted providers within reach.

Approach. An all-in-one companion for expecting mothers, built in React Native and shaped by the NSF I-Corps customer-discovery method and 25+ stakeholder interviews. It pairs a symptom tracker for blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight with a searchable, reviewed directory of maternal providers and a community home feed — with week-by-week education and multilingual editions on the roadmap.

Outcome. Won the $25,000 TechUnited Better Wellness Challenge (2021), pitched at the Propelify Innovation Festival to executives from RWJBarnabas Health, Colgate-Palmolive, and Labcorp. Selected for the Clinton Global Initiative University '22 accelerator and named a semi-finalist in the AWS U.S. University Start-Up Competition.

2.2Justice Health

fauzanamjad.github.io/JusticeHealth

Field Research · Correctional Healthcare · Policy

Problem. Incarcerated people — often arriving with untreated mental illness and substance-use disorders — depend on correctional systems for care, yet only 4 of 50 states deliver that care through a university. The recurring failure is not a single lapse but one of cadence and continuity.

Approach. The first program of its kind in the country, run through Rutgers Honors College and University Correctional Healthcare. Six undergraduate researchers — I led the team — spent a summer alongside clinicians inside New Jersey's correctional system, conducting fieldwork across five domains: sleep and environment, pharmaceutical access and medication cycling, mental-health screening and continuity, workforce development and reentry, and women's health and menstrual-product access.

Outcome. A comprehensive white paper of findings and policy recommendations. Among them: 72% of the incarcerated women studied were classified as poor sleepers, and facilities provided only two weeks of medication at release — a gap that undoes months of in-facility treatment.

2.3Acetlinx

fauzanamjad.github.io/acetlinx.html

Open Educational Resource · CS Education · Access

Problem. AP Computer Science A is a gateway to college credit and a computing career, but strong preparation is unevenly distributed — and women and minority students are underrepresented at the door.

Approach. A free, self-study video curriculum covering introductory computer science in Java, published openly on YouTube so any student can prepare for the AP Computer Science A exam without cost or gatekeeping.

Outcome. An openly accessible course that lowers the cost and time barrier to college credit and widens the on-ramp into computer science for students who would otherwise be left out.

Section Three

Research & Scholarship

Proposition. A throughline

Read together, the research below traces one line of inquiry: how clinical care and health outcomes fail people at the margins — and what data, technology, and policy can do about it. It runs through cancer disparities, maternal and infant health, correctional medicine, and vaccine hesitancy, and it is the reason the engineering and the governance exist at all.

3.1Health Equity & Clinical Research

Roles across four institutions, one recurring subject.

Cancer Institute of NJ
Research Assistant (2024). Investigated disparities in breast-cancer mortality across underserved populations using NIH All of Us data — modeling how socioeconomic status, geography, and discrimination (via Everyday Discrimination Scale scores) shape outcomes, and applying machine learning to flag high-risk groups, all under federal data-governance and patient-privacy controls.
RWJ Women's Health
Research Intern, Women's Health Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (2021–2024). Conducted 25+ semi-structured stakeholder interviews to reduce infant mortality in New Jersey and applied the Lean Startup method to design a maternal-health application, alongside maternal-education outreach for underserved communities.
Correctional Health
Research Contractor & Project Lead, University Correctional Healthcare / NJ Department of Corrections (2022). Led a team of interns and authored a literature review on sleep deprivation in correctional facilities — the basis of the Justice Health white paper.
Merck & Co.
Data Analytics & Research Contractor (2021). Analyzed survey data on vaccine knowledge and hesitancy in minority communities using Python and R, examining faith-based influence, side-effect concern, and provider communication across income bands, and recommending culturally-informed public-health strategies.
Vicario Lab
AI Research Assistant, Rutgers Psychology (2021–2024). Built and trained TensorFlow models to label zebra-finch behavior in response to auditory stimuli, studying the neural mechanisms of auditory discrimination and sensorimotor learning.

3.2Publications

  1. Amjad, F. & al-Adam, J. Foreign Usage of AI: Implications on American National Security and Information Warfare. Eagleton Political Journal, Vol. III, Issue I, pp. 17–20. April 28, 2024. ResearchGate

3.3Presentations

  1. Amjad, F. Ethical Aspects of Integrating Artificial Intelligence in the Landscape of Addiction Treatment: A Comprehensive Examination of Moral and Technological Nexus. Rutgers Addiction Research Center Fall Symposium. September 2023. ResearchGate
  2. Amjad, F. Implementation of the NSF I-Corps Entrepreneurship Training Approach to Decrease Racial Health Disparities in New Jersey via the Creation of a Maternal Healthcare Application. NJ Alliance for Clinical & Translational Science, 2022 CES Symposium. June 2022. ResearchGate
  3. Nakka, S., Amjad, F., Lytle, J., Collins, L., Furest, B. & Phan, M. Machine-learning Approach to Track Sound-Elicited Behavioral Changes. Advancing Cross-Disciplinary Outreach in Neuroscience (AXON) Conference. May 2021.

3.4Technical Reports

  1. Amjad, F. et al. Refining Undergraduate Education: Student Insights and Recommendations for Implementing Rutgers University's Discovery Advantage Plan. Office of Undergraduate Education, Rutgers University. January 2024. ResearchGate
  2. Amjad, F. et al. Common Hour Exams at Rutgers University: A Reevaluation. Office of Undergraduate Education, Rutgers University. March 2023. ResearchGate
  3. Amjad, F. et al. Justice Health: A Comprehensive Examination of Correctional Facility Issues and Recommendations for Improved Health Outcomes. New Jersey Department of Corrections. July 2022. ResearchGate
  4. Algava, B., Amjad, F. et al. Examining Vaccine Hesitancy Among Black and Brown Populations Utilizing Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds to Find Racial Disparities. Merck & Co., Inc. July 2021.

3.5Honors & Distinctions

  • President Bill Clinton Global Initiative University — Class of '22 2022
  • Winner, $25,000 TechUnited: Better Wellness Challenge, Propelify Innovation Festival 2021
  • Winner, Johnson & Johnson & AWS Black Tech Health Hackathon 2020
  • Semi-Finalist, Amazon Web Services U.S. University Start-Up Competition
  • National Science Foundation & Rutgers Innovation Corps — $2,500 Grant 2021
  • Rutgers Scarlet Service — Washington, D.C. Award, $3,000
  • Outstanding Abstract, Community Engaged Scholarship Symposium: Best Practices to Achieve Health Equity 2022
  • Valedictorian, John F. Kennedy Memorial High School — highest-ranked student in class
Section Four

Interests & Public Life

4.1Cricket

Cricket came from my father, in elementary school, and stuck — the whole game turning on a single delivery, the six or the shattered wicket. I play both tennis-ball and leather-ball cricket, and as Founder and President of the Rutgers Cricket Club I revived a dormant program after 2019, restoring a team at a university that had won the national collegiate tournament in 2018.†

4.2Hackathons

Hackathons are where I do my best learning under time pressure — a weekend, a real problem, a working build. The wins include the Johnson & Johnson Black Tech Hackathon (2020), the HackRU Health Hack track, and the RIEEE Last Codebender hackathon for a blood-donor prediction model. As much as the awards, I go for the people you meet building something at 3 a.m.

4.3Civic Engagement

I take the machinery of democracy seriously and have worked inside it: on Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr.'s Youth Advisory Council and as an Undergraduate Associate at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. An educated, active voter base is not a slogan to me but a precondition — most of my policy and governance work comes back to it.

4.4Selected Media & Talks

Section Five

Correspondence

The best ways to reach me. For research questions, email is surest.

Email fauzan.amjad@rutgers.edu
X / Twitter @FauzanAmjad
GitHub github.com/fauzanamjad
Publications ResearchGate
Board Bio Rutgers Board of Trustees
Cricket Rutgers Cricket Club

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