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Command, Control and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA)

The newest DHS Center of Excellence (COE), the Command, Control, and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis (CCICADA), celebrated its inauguration with a kick-off event at Rutgers University on December 9th and 10th, a month following the opening of its partner CCI center, Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments (VACCINE), led by Purdue. The two CCI partners aim to create enduring technologies capable of analyzing vast amounts of information from disparate sources to detect threats to national security, the nation’s infrastructure, and the health of the U.S. population.

On the first day, an overview of CCICADA research was followed by presentations of sample research projects: extracting information from multimedia sources; data warehousing; textual entailment; applying inference to find knowledge gaps; data privacy; trustworthiness of online documents and data sources; sequential inspection methods for container inspection; and virtual worlds. There were also 19 student posters.

A session on VACCINE’s research agenda included discussions of joint CCICADAVACCINE projects on geospatial data and on crime analysis with the Port Authority of NY/NJ. Directors of six DHS COEs talked about their data analysis problems and described joint CCICADA projects with the START Center on analytics for the Global Terrorism Database; with the FAZD Center on biosurveillance; and with the CREATE Center on port resiliency. The day finished with discussions of education programs, technology transfer, and reactions from CCICADA’s Advisory Committee.

On Day 2, Rutgers President Richard McCormick referred to CCICADA’s role as “a sobering responsibility.” Congressman Frank Pallone of NJ, in a letter, referred to the Center’s work as “vital” to the “objective of keeping our nation safe from future national security threats.” A letter from Sen. Frank Lautenberg of NJ expressed confidence in CCICADA’s ability to work effectively with DHS, “not only conducting research, but expanding technologies, and developing methods that confront data analysis problems that threaten homeland security.” Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland wrote that he was “certain” that the Center will “contribute in a significant way to strengthening national security.”

The program featured opening remarks by DHS officials followed by a ceremonial ribbon cutting. CCICADA Director Fred Roberts and VACCINE Director David Ebert gave overviews of their centers’ programs. A panel featuring COE directors led to ideas for joint projects. A panel of Advisory Committee members featured advice about technology transfer from a venture capitalist and advice about data privacy from a vice president of Yahoo! Practical data analysis problems were presented by speakers from the Port Authority of NY/NJ, Coast Guard, FBI Cybersquad, NJ Department of Health, National Maritime Intelligence Center, CDC, and NJ Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.