Homeland Security Summit at Penn State
April 21, 2003
University Park, Pa. --- Penn State, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have joined together to form the Keystone Homeland Security University Research Alliance and will hold a kickoff summit meeting, Monday, April 28, at University Park.
Dr. Charles (Chuck) McQueary, undersecretary for science and technology, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will be the featured speaker.
The Keystone Alliance is being formed to provide Pennsylvania’s response to the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s education and research needs.
Building on prior successful collaborations in the life sciences, system-on-a-chip technologies and nanotechnology, Penn State, Penn, Pitt and Carnegie Mellon plan to collaborate and apply their research resources in biology, biomedicine, agricultural sciences, engineering, information management and security, and public policy to the important challenges faced by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Dr. Robert McGrath, Penn State associate vice president for multi-disciplinary research initiatives, is coordinating the Keystone Alliance Summit. He says,” In fiscal year 2000, the most recent year for which National Science Foundation data is available, the Keystone Alliance universities executed a total of $642, 698, 000 in grants and contracts from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and $155, 916, 000 from the U.S. Department of Defense with much of this work directly applicable for addressing the Homeland Security challenges facing our nation. These figures provide an indication of the size and national competitiveness of the Alliance’s research programs.”
For example, McGrath notes, the Keystone Alliance brings together three of the nation’s most prestigious medical colleges at Penn, Pitt and Penn State which collectively host research programs in virology, cytomegalovirus, vaccinia, tuberculosis, smallpox, HIV and DNA/RNA tumor viruses. These colleges are also connected to emergency response organizations through partnerships with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, the State Police and other law enforcement agencies.
The University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University’s Realtime Outbreak and Disease Surveillance (RODS) software is being used to monitor anomalous increases in outbreaks of flu, respiratory illnesses, skin rashes, and other symptoms that may be indicative of a terrorist attack. RODS was deployed at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and is now in use at hospitals across Utah and Pennsylvania.
Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine has research programs on hoof-and-mouth disease, West Nile virus and avian influenza that threaten U.S. agricultural assets. Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences conducts research on food processing and safety and also maintains a U. S. Department of Agriculture-sponsored E. coli Reference Center.
Carnegie Mellon University has nationally recognized programs in information systems security and survivability, including the Department of Defense-funded Software Engineering Institute and its CERT Coordination Center as well as a new $35 million Center for Computer and Communications Security. Carnegie Mellon conducts extensive research in areas such as green chemistry tools for contaminant cleanup, autonomous robotic systems and vision identification systems. The university is also part of a team creating an unmanned combat vehicle. Jared L. Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon, serves the nation as a member of President Bush’s Homeland Security Advisory Council.
The Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response at Penn is a leader in the study of the public policy, criminal justices and interdependent security aspects of homeland security. At Pitt the Matthew B. Ridgway Center analyzes security challenges facing the United States and the international community, such as international financial and crime networks.
**bah**