Michael B. Silevitch is currently the Robert D. Black Professor of Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, an elected life fellow of the IEEE, the Director of the Homeland Security Center of Excellence for Awareness and Localization of Explosives Related Threats (ALERT), and the Director of the Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (Gordon-CenSSIS), a graduated National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (ERC).His training has encompassed both physics and electrical engineering disciplines. An author/co-author of over 65 journal papers, his research interests include laboratory and space plasma dynamics, nonlinear statistical mechanics, and K-12 science and mathematics curriculum implementation. Prof. Silevitch is also the creator of the Gordon Engineering Leadership (GEL) Program at Northeastern University, a graduate curriculum offered through the College of Engineering, with the mission of creating an elite cadre of engineering leaders. He and the current GEL Director, Simon Pitts, were awarded the 2015 Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Engineering Education by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).