The University of Southern California was selected Tuesday as the Department of Homeland Security’s first university-based center for research. The University of Nebraska was one of the four finalists for the center, officially called the DHS Center of Excellence for Risk Analysis and Modeling Related to the Economic Consequences of Terrorism.
The center will be funded at $4 million annually over three years.
The University of Nebraska’s proposal was coordinated by the University of Nebraska Center for Biosecurity, which is located at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The university’s proposal for the DHS center was headed by principal investigator Gerald Wagner, Ph.D., distinguished research fellow in the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s College of Information Science and Technology at The Peter Kiewit Institute. Dr. Wagner is the director of PKI’s International Academy for Advanced Decision Support (IAADS).
Originally, 72 universities submitted proposals for the center. That list was then narrowed down to 12 universities with each submitting a written proposal. After the proposals were reviewed, the list was narrowed to four universities on Oct. 27, and DHS officials then visited the four finalists earlier this month.
Dr. Wagner said the university should be proud for making the Final Four. “Our being in the final four out of 72 candidates demonstrates that we can compete at the national level with the best academic institutions. We will now move forward to move into other domains the concepts that we developed for our DHS proposal.”
University of Nebraska officials were notified in a letter sent from Melvin Bernstein, Ph.D., director of University Programs for DHS.
In his letter, Dr. Bernstein recognized the University of Nebraska for being one of the four finalists. He wrote: “Your group reflected a genuine interest, determination, and commitment to contributing to the prevention and deterrence of terrorism and to the success of DHS in achieving our goals. We felt your enthusiasm.
“The University clearly has strong community support and demonstrated a clear record of community investment in campus infrastructure and programs. There was also strong evidence of campus administration commitment. Your commitment and involvement in engaging underrepresented groups is notable and commendable.”
Steven Hinrichs, M.D., director of University of Nebraska Center for Biosecurity, emphasized that this is one of several important bioterrorism preparedness initiatives that the university is pursuing.
“We have already seen the benefits from the national visibility this program has generated,” Dr. Hinrichs said, “For example, we have been contacted by national laboratory scientists about collaborative studies.”
“This shows that the University of Nebraska is making its mark nationally,” said Harold M. Maurer, M.D., UNMC chancellor. “It’s very rewarding to know we are competing at a national level. The public-private partnership developed through this proposal can be useful as we seek to expand.”
University of Nebraska President L. Dennis Smith, Ph.D., echoed these sentiments: “We know we can play in the big leagues, and this gives us a boost to move our bioterrorism agenda forward. DHS officials obviously recognized the expertise present at the University of Nebraska, and we can build on that in future initiatives.”
UNO chancellor Nancy Belck concurred. “We’re going to keep moving forward. I salute Dr. Wagner and all the other people involved in the proposal. They did an outstanding job, and everyone in the state should be proud of what the university accomplished in making the Final Four.”
The high level of cooperation among academia, state government and the private sector has been a unique component in Nebraska’s bioterrorism preparedness initiatives, Dr. Hinrichs said.
The University of Nebraska proposal for the DHS center was based on a strategy designed to minimize the economic impact of terrorist attacks on the transportation, energy, finance and supply distribution infrastructure in the United States. It featured collaboration among university scientists, state government and private business. In all, 10 businesses – four in transportation and three apiece in the energy and finance sectors – agreed to participate in the center.
“Union Pacific was pleased to be part of the team that brought the DHS proposal to fruition,” said Dick Davidson, chairman and CEO of Union Pacific Corporation. “This project brought many different elements of our state together in a way that makes us all proud.”
“I appreciated the fact that the reviewers noted the strength of ‘the community investment’ in this project,” said Howard Hawks, chairman and chief executive officer of Tenaska, Inc., an Omaha-based energy company, and a member of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. “We will continue to leverage private support to boost the university’s competitiveness.”
Businesses included in the proposal included:
- Transportation – Union Pacific Corporation, Crete Carrier Corp., Werner Enterprises and the Omaha Airport Authority. These businesses employ state-of-the-art information tracking systems, knowing the location and load of a specific truck or railcar throughout the country, Dr. Wagner said.
- Energy – the Omaha Public Power District, Tenaska Inc., and MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. These companies are experts in disaster preparedness, including the economic impact of an interruption of energy, Dr. Wagner said.
- Finance – First National Bank Omaha, Wells Fargo Bank, and Mutual of Omaha. The businesses have diversified financial services and expertise in risk assessment, evaluating the impact of risk in a bioterrorism-related event. Dr. Wagner said.
The key element in the DHS proposal, Dr. Wagner said, was the software architecture used to develop a family of real-time distributed simulation models to analyze the impact of alternative scenarios associated with potential or real terrorist attacks.
The simulator would allow decision makers to “rehearse the future,” he said, by suggesting or designing potential emergencies and practicing alternative responses to determine the effects of their decisions. In essence, the model could be used as a training tool and as an actual response tool in the event of an emergency.
Advanced visualization technologies were also included in the proposal. Using multimedia technology such as animation and sound, an environment is created that allows for decision makers to have an experience of being physically present in the simulated futures. The proposal focused on the impact of potential terrorist attacks on the transportation industry.
The principals of the system apply to all sectors such as agriculture and finance. The software architecture could become the foundation technology for many programs having to do with the threat of terrorism, Dr. Wagner said. The technology could also be applicable specifically for the private sector and its strategic planning. He cited the example that a corporation could use the system to evaluate scenarios related to any type of threat including from competition.
The university collaborators on the DHS proposal included the IAADS at The Peter Kiewit Institute; the Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies (CALMIT) and the Transportation Safety and Engineering group at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; the Aviation Institute at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; and the State of Nebraska Homeland Security Policy Group. Federal groups included Offutt Air Force Base, StratCom and the Army Corps of Engineers.