Bergen Community College

Bergen Community College alumnus Richard Boada Maldonado, ‘23, served as the research lead of the electric go kart development project within the STEM Student Scholar (3SP) program at Bergen.

“Bergen gave me the opportunity to shine as a student and future engineer,” said Boada. “I was interested in electric vehicles and showing people that they are not as complex as they seem, so I started my research project on a program to acquaint future generations with EVs.”

Leading his team to make their vision a reality, Boada and his teammates, Sebastian Mattio-Smith (‘24) and John Griffith (‘23), engineered a fully functional one-seater electric go-kart prototype with a top speed of 40 mph and a driving time of approximately two hours at 80 percent power with an adult driver. The team developed the go-kart in the College’s STEM Student Research Center – the nation’s only one of its kind at a community college.

The team presented their electric-go kart prototype at the Community College Innovation Challenge sponsored by the National Science Foundation and American Association of Community Colleges as one of 12 finalists. The innovation challenge spotlights community college student teams working with faculty mentors to use STEM in solving real-world problems. The team earned the bid on the strength of an electric go-kart project and even had the chance to present their results for government officials on Capitol Hill.

“Representing Bergen Community College at a national competition was surreal,” said Boada. “The fact that our project is among the top twelve STEM Projects in the United States shows that hard work will find a way to blossom and reveal itself to the world.”

“What I love about Bergen is that it has a strong community of good people who want to do their best work,” he said.

Boada has served as president of the Latin American Student Association and a peer tutor and Supplemental Instruction leader at the Cerullo Learning Assistance Center at Bergen. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society.

“Bergen was my best option when I started during the pandemic,” said Boada. “Bergen has the right people to help you achieve what you want, do well in your classes; they will reveal themselves.”

Expressing his gratitude to the STEM Department at Bergen, Boada thanked his faculty mentor and professor PJ Ricatto, Ph.D. “Dr. Ricatto has been the voice of wisdom and has always given me a new perspective on whatever I had in mind,” said Boada. “Collaborating with truly good people and professors of such a high caliber was delightful.”

Boada is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in applied mathematics at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Based in Paramus, Bergen Community College (www.bergen.edu), a public two-year coeducational college, enrolls more than 13,000 students at locations in Paramus, the Philip Ciarco Jr. Learning Center in Hackensack and Bergen Community College at the Meadowlands in Lyndhurst. The College offers associate degree, certificate and continuing education programs in a variety of fields. More students graduate from Bergen than any other community college in the state.

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