Northeastern to build homeland security research center
A $12 million gift from an alum will allow Northeastern University to build a homeland security research facility on its Burlington campus; the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security will be designed to Department of Defense specifications so Northeastern can gain clearances to conduct secure research on areas pertaining to national security, including cryptography, data security, information assurance, explosives detection, and energy harvesting
Boston's Northeastern University // Source: gfna.net
A $12 million gift from an alum will allow Northeastern University to build a homeland security research facility on its Burlington campus. The gift from 1943 chemical engineering graduate George Kostas, founder of Techno-Economic Services, is the largest for a capital project in the university’s history.
The George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security will be designed to Department of Defense specifications so Northeastern can gain clearances to conduct secure research on areas pertaining to national security, including cryptography, data security, information assurance, explosives detection, and energy harvesting.
“This gift expresses our gratitude to my alma mater and to those who crafted our democratic form of government,” Kostas said in a statement. “It is our desire to assist in preserving our constitution for the benefit of future generations from terrorists who have demonstrated their increasing capability to destroy our democratic form of government.”
Northeastern has a strong portfolio of research efforts built around security. In 2008, DHS selected Northeastern as one of eleven universities nationwide for a DHS Center in Excellence. The $10 million grant established the Center for Awareness and Localization of Explosive-Related Threats (ALERT) at Northeastern. Northeastern’s Marine Research Center in Nahant is working on robotic technology to detect underwater mines.
The research conducted by the new Kostas Institute will be part of a federally-funded research portfolio of Northeastern’s College of Engineering. The College of Engineering and the College of Computer and Information Science also have programs in cyber infrastructure protection and in the wireless and wired networks and algorithms that form the backbone of robust command and control systems.
