Rutgers to Hold Kickoff Event for Consortium in $30 Million Homeland Security Research Center

 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in March selected Rutgers as co-lead for a new DHS Center of Excellence to conduct research into the technological issues involved with maintaining homeland security. Rutgers and its co-lead, Purdue University, will together receive up to $5 million per year over a period of six years, for an anticipated total of as much as $30 million.

The Rutgers-led component of the center, known as the “Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis” (CCICADA), will hold its kickoff meeting Dec. 10 with DHS officials, advisory board members and leaders from 14 partner institutions. The event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the first floor lecture hall of the CoRE Building on the Busch campus.

Representing the DHS will be Bradley Buswell, deputy under secretary, Science and Technology Directorate; Matthew Clark, director of University Programs; and Joseph Kielman, director of Research Futures, Command, Control, and Interoperability Division.

State officials along with representatives from federal and state agencies will also participate. They include Richard Cañas, director, New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, and Assemblyman Frederick Scalera, chair, Homeland Security and State Preparedness committee.

Rutgers will be the lead institution for the center’s research in the data sciences, and Purdue will be the lead for research in the visualization sciences. Leading the CCICADA effort is the university’s Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS).

The DHS center will work on such applications as container inspection in ports, sensor management for nuclear detection, surveillance for early warning of emerging diseases, defense against cyber infrastructure attacks, data management in emergency situations, and infrastructure protection. It will work with agencies in local, state, and federal government and the private sector.

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CCICADA kickoff event details