

Dear SENTRY Community,
In recent months, we have closely engaged our researchers, students, staff, and industry and academic partners in our work. I am excited to announce that our network of academic partners has expanded with the addition of new SENTRY research projects in 2024: Florida International University, Mississippi State University, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, are leading three of the projects. The other two are from existing partners, Northeastern University and the University of Southern California.
On December 13, 2023, Professor Jun Zhuang hosted a symposium at the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. to address the growing concern for student safety. The symposium was titled “School Safety and Security: Models and Practices” and featured presentations from several SENTRY researchers to promote our work in the school security space and exchange knowledge of advancements in the field.
Our Industry Advisory Board met virtually on January 30, 2024. The meeting featured a keynote address on the unique challenges of transportation security by Janice Farkas, Director of Intelligence for the New Jersey Transit Police Department. Similarly, our Practitioner Advisory Board met on February 6, 2024, to discuss the topic of interoperability, specifically concerning SENTRY case studies and venues. One of the notable attendees was Melissa Nazzaro, Emergency Communication Coordinator at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), who shared her extensive experience in managing emergency communications.
Our case studies continue to facilitate researcher knowledge and understanding of the security needs of specific soft targets and crowded places. The School Security Case Study team recently developed a license agreement with Boston Public Schools (BPS), allowing BPS and SENTRY to partner on “the advancement of school safety” in 2024. The group also worked with six school security practitioners to develop recommendations for enhancing school security for distribution to school administrators in the spring.
The Passenger-Based Surface Transportation Case Study team is compiling the outputs of listening sessions and site visits to transportation hubs in New Jersey, New York, and Houston to be distributed and leveraged by SENTRY researchers. Lastly, our Stadium Security Case Study launched in late fall of 2023 and will hold a Focus Group with six stadium security practitioners and SENTRY researchers on March 27, 2024.
Most recently, SENTRY co-hosted the second annual Designing Actionable Solutions for a Secure Homeland (DASSH) Student Design Challenge in collaboration with fellow DHS Center of Excellence, the CAOE (the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency). During this event, mentors provided guidance to student teams presented with real-world problem scenarios related to this year’s theme of Cascading Events. The resulting solutions proposed by this year’s participants demonstrated the vast potential of our students in shaping the future of homeland security.
Looking ahead, I am working closely with SENTRY researchers and administrators to prepare for our Biennial Review on March 13, 2024. The Biennial Review is a chance to demonstrate the unique value of our projects as we seek to address knowledge gaps not currently addressed by other Department of Homeland Security research and development programs.
My thanks to you, our SENTRY family, for your focus and cooperation as we work to showcase our research and potential to better secure soft targets and crowded places.
Onwards,
Michael Silevitch
Director, SENTRY Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence
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