

Together with the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency (CAOE), a fellow Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence, SENTRY hosted the 2023 Designing Actionable Solutions for a Secure Homeland (DASSH) student design challenge that spotlighted the power of collaboration and creativity in the face of contemporary threats to homeland security. With guidance from academic and industry mentors, graduate and undergraduate students designed solutions to real-world issues surrounding the protection of public access areas.
The event, which took place over one weekend from February 24 to February 26, stressed the importance of student engagement in brain-storming and collaborative problem-solving to address complicated issues of importance to DHS. Participants formed teams of four to six students and each team selected one of the following problem statements to address:
Problem Statement 1: How do we guide crowds to good decisions during an attack?
Problem Statement 2: How do we enable effective and timely communication among stakeholders and responders to allow for oversight and response to an attack?
Problem Statement 3: How can we inform and enable civilians to prepare for a drone attack?
To kick off the event, CAOE and SENTRY Leadership opened with a welcome message from the Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security, Dr. Dimitri Kusnezov. This was followed by a keynote presentation from George Naccara, Chair of the SENTRY Practitioner Advisory Board, who outlined goals for the three-day event. Rear Admiral Naccara provided examples from his vast experience within the homeland security workforce from his service in the United States Coast Guard to his work as a TSA Senior Official and Chief of Security with the Massachusetts Port Authority to give a better understanding of the security needs associated with protecting soft targets and crowded places.
23 student teams participated in DASSH, including SENTRY students who worked within two different groups, each tackling a separate problem statement. One team, comprised of three SENTRY students and one Northeastern University student, developed a solution to Problem Statement 3 competing against five other teams. This team, known as Shelter in the Storm, placed second in that category for their proposed solution known as High-Altitude Warning and Counter System (HAWCS) and split the prize award of $5000. The members of this team included:
Another team made up of students from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM), was led by Jorge Plata Enriquez, who is a SENTRY student researcher, and included Isabel Aguirre Ortiz, Carolina Colon, and Priscilla Soler Rodríguez. This team addressed Problem Statement 1 with their proposed solution for using scent to warn civilians of potential threats and to guide them safely away from suspected danger zones.
The DASSH design challenge allowed students within different academic disciplines to exchange varied perspectives while developing potential solutions to homeland security related problems. Kevin Kapadia, pursuing his Ph.D. in psychology, with a specialty in quantitative methods and computational psychology stated, “My favorite aspect of the event was the collaboration. I had never worked with people from outside of my research areas in SENTRY, but this competition allowed me to meet other like-minded people who I can now connect with more regularly.”
SENTRY looks forward to participating in these annual DASSH student challenges and will be working with CAOE and the SENTRY Student Leadership Council throughout the year to envision new ways to continue this type of collaborative student engagement.
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