The largest award ($2.75 million) came from the DHS to support a multi-year program to develop and deploy a system of sensors that would defeat small and medium Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), commonly known as drones, to protect critical infrastructure and people.
The Stevens research team, led by Dr. Hady Salloum, director of the DHS S&T Center of Excellence for Maritime Security at Stevens, will provide key elements of this program, including the development of a test bed, development and demonstration of an acoustic sensor solution, and contributions to other program efforts including modeling and simulation.
Another notable award related to cybersecurity came from the Office of Naval Research, which awarded Stevens nearly $500 thousand to support research into protecting the federal government’s computer networks against security breaches like the one that occurred at the Office of Personnel Management in 2015.
Stevens researchers, led by Georgios Portokalidis, computer science professor at Stevens, will conduct research into software security solutions that can be applied to large and complex software found on production systems to ward off such attacks and improve reliability.
Last month, computer engineering professor Negar Tavassolian was selected to receive the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The award is the most prestigious honor for up-and-coming researchers in science and engineering.
Along with the highly-competitive award, Tavassolian will receive a $500,000 grant from the NSF to begin an immediate project that will apply millimeter-wave technology to biomedical imaging applications in an effort to diagnose skin cancer tumors earlier and more effectively than is currently possible.
As part of the project, Tavassolian will also create educational programs in partnership with Liberty Science Center in Jersey City and a new Stevens graduate-level course in the biomedical applications of electromagnetics.
About Stevens
Stevens Institute of Technology, The Innovation University®, is a premier, private research university situated in Hoboken, N.J. overlooking the Manhattan skyline. Founded in 1870, technological innovation has been the hallmark and legacy of Stevens’ education and research programs for more than 145 years.
Within the university’s three schools and one college, more than 6,800 undergraduate and graduate students collaborate with more than 380 faculty members in an interdisciplinary, student-centric, entrepreneurial environment to advance the frontiers of science and leverage technology to confront global challenges.
Stevens is home to three national research centers of excellence, as well as joint research programs focused on critical industries such as healthcare, energy, finance, defense, maritime security, STEM education and coastal sustainability. Stevens is in the midst of a 10-year strategic plan, The Future. Ours to Create., designed to further extend the Stevens legacy to create a forward-looking and far-reaching institution with global impact.