The 2019 DHS Centers of Excellence Summit hosted students from across the COE academic network for a Student Grand Challenge, where students competed for top honors in providing DHS component leaders, industry partners, and academia with innovative solutions to homeland security challenges. 30 interdisciplinary students were convened into six teams with the purpose of identifying an emerging threat to homeland security posed by Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and developing a strategy to counter the threat. Students presented their solutions to a panel of seven judges from DHS and industry stakeholders.
On the second day of the Summit, first and second place teams presented their work to event attendees and received award certificates presented by the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology (SOPDUSST), Mr. William N. Bryan.
In addition to receiving award certificates from SOPDUSST Mr. Bryan, Summit Grand Challenge winners were recognized with an award certificate by Mr. Michael Saunders, Senior Director, Strategy & Business Development at General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), which sponsored the event.
A team of students from five universities captured first place in the Summit Grand Challenge for its project on “Automated Drone Integrated Information System.” The team consisted of presenter, Emily Belk from the Awareness and Localization of Explosives-Related Threats (ALERT) COE, Northeastern University; Tristan Goers, Arctic Domain Awareness Center (ADAC), University of Alaska Anchorage; Keshav Kasichainula, Borders, Trade, Immigration (BTI), University of Houston; Trinity Reed, Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI), Southern University and A&M College; and Emiliano Ruiz, Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency (CAOE), University of Texas at El Paso.
The second place team in the Summit Grand Challenge presented their project, “Drone-based MIR Laser Induced Thermal Imaging for Identification of Chemical Substances.” The team consisted of William Case, Coastal Resilience Center (CRC), Johnson C. Smith University; Ha Anh Vu Le (BTI), University of Houston; Annette Colón Mercado (ALERT), University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez; Danielle Dobbs, Maritime Security Center (MSC), SUNY Maritime; and Jin Lee (CINA), George Mason University.
For more information on the 2019 DHS COE Summit event, please visit coesummit.org.