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April 2006
CTS, CSE establish SECTTRA Program for transportation security research
Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos
In recent years the University of Minnesota has successfully attracted federal funds to address transportation security issues, in part due to seed funding from the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Institute at CTS. In order to expand the transportation security research, education, and outreach funding at the University, a new program is being developed to communicate University expertise to various federal funding agencies and take advantage of increased funding for research on transportation security technologies.
SECTTRA—Security in Transportation Technology Research and Applications—is a joint program of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and CTS. Its mission is to earn recognition for the University of Minnesota as a world leader in the development and application of technologies for transportation security.
CSE professor Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos will lead SECTTRA. As program director, Papanikolopoulos will work with CTS and sponsors to attract funding, involve faculty and department staff in research activities, provide national and state leadership, and guide the delivery of research, education, and outreach efforts.
A joint memorandum of understanding was signed for SECTTRA in March by Robert Johns, CTS director; Papanikolopoulos; Max Donath, director of the ITS Institute; Vipin Kumar, CSE department head; and Steven Crouch, dean of the Institute of Technology. “This agreement reflects a new alliance between CTS and CSE,” says Johns. “It defines the proposed structure and establishes a stronger partnership for the future.”
The SECTTRA program will collaborate with the ITS Institute and the Safety Security Rescue Research Center (SSR-RC) in CSE. Funded by the National Science Foundation, SSR-RC is a cooperative research center that coordinates research with a spectrum of large general homeland security contractors, companies with a specific market share, and start-up companies with key enabling technologies.
SECTTRA’s mission complements SSR-RC’s goal of attracting private sector funding for a broad range of security-related research. It also complements the ITS Institute goal of attracting funds for other transportation technology research.
SECTTRA research findings will be incorporated into computer science courses and degree programs and in educational offerings by other disciplines. Planned outreach efforts include an electronic newsletter and a Web site featuring all transportation security research projects, regardless of funding source, in order to show the broad nature of transportation security research efforts at the University.