Education and Training

The CINA Center is pursuing three types of workforce and professional development activities related to its mission of disabling transnational criminal organizations:

• Educating the future workforce by developing integrative cross-disciplinary academic courses, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, that build upon existing programs in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and analytics. This curriculum will integrate findings from CINA research, and build upon connections with the homeland security professionals.
• Creating professional development methods to strengthen the substantive, scientific, engineering, business, and analytical capabilities of the current homeland security workforce as they face diverse and novel transnational crime challenges.
• Improving workforce diversity through innovative interaction with Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and focusing on minority student recruitment.

A Message on Diversity and Inclusion from Director Jim Jones

Since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security established the CINA Center at George Mason University in 2017, we have worked hand in hand with many Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) to conduct research of consequence, to educate and inform MSI students and faculty, and to develop a diverse and highly capable workforce for DHS. We are proud of that work and honored to be a part of their accomplishments and contributions.

As with any good collaboration, we too have learned and grown from these partnerships, and for that we are also grateful. We look forward to continuing to be a part of the important work that these scholars, scientists, and engineers are doing. We will continue to highlight their efforts and embrace their future potential as we move toward shared goals of diversity, inclusion, equity, and excellence.